'rosy Romance 




Br T. F. SPROUL 




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m 



Book -<J 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PROSY ROMANCE 



cA Lady Teacher and a Rich 

Bachelor Try to Harmonize 

Their Views on Love, Logic, 

Religion and Sociology" 







By T. F. SPROUL 

AUTHOR AND PROPRIETOR^ 



w* 

S1 



Copyright 1911, 
By T. F. Sproul. 



All rights reserved. 






©CU303551 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

1 The Lady School Teacher has a Marriage Proposition 5 

2 Wrangling Over Bad Habits 14 

3 The First Letter from Topeka, and a Little Girl's Sorrow .... 26 

4 Absent Treatment 34 

5 Resisting the Worldly Ways of Men 39 

6 A Rival, Vina Vintage 44 

7 Less Love — More Light 46 

" The Higher Life 52 

8 Conflicting Opinions 60 

9 Making Amends and Resolutions 67 

10 Religion, Prohibition, and Equal Suffrage 74 

11 Scripture Quotations 81 

12 A Warning Threat to Publish Quotations 93 

13 Dash Sanctions the Publication 103 

14 The Old Maid's Religion Becomes Elastic 119 

" In the Dome of the Capitol 132 

15 In Lina's Room in Topeka 143 

16 The Last Message: Happiness, Prosperity, Consecration, Old- 

Age Pensions, Socialism, Money, and a Sequel 150 



A REQUEST. 

Dear Reader: The author of THE PROSY RO- 
MANCE is asking you as a personal favor which he hopes 
to use for the public welfare, to send him your written opinion 
of this book; point out its defects as well as its effects. 
If it is meritorious in any way, mention it ; or if you think 
it is not worth the time it takes to read, say so. Make 
commentaries on any of the radical reforms it mentions. 
If you think the fundamental principles of our sociological 
system are all right, tell about them ; they may be. 

The author would like to get enough criticisms to publish 
a volume ; he can assure you that Crane & Company can do 
the manufacturing as perfectly as it can be done anywhere. 

We are all parts of one stupendous whole; humanity is 
the whole. All books are imperfect; even the divine (?) 
scriptures have glaring defects — some of the most vulgar 
passages known in print, as well as some of the most de- 
basing falsehoods. 

In considering Dash Blank, remember that a young man 
with 200,000 dollars at his command is generally a precarious 
proposition; however, there being so much time ahead of 
him, he may undergo a complete reformation, return to 
Topeka and marry the best woman in the State. Those 
who are not naturally bad and who have a profound respect 
for honesty and virtue, may become the very best and most 
useful citizens, even though they never profess religion or 
get pious; cases in proof are Thomas Jefferson, Abraham 
Lincoln, and many others ; so do not condemn the book too 
severely until you have considered the intensity of the 
situation, the motive of the author and the possibilities of 
the future ; for it is the intention to publish the sequel after 
the next session of the Kansas Legislature. 
T. F. Sproul, 

311 East Eighth Street, 

Topeka, Kansas. 



The Prosy Romance 



THE LADY SCHOOL TEACHER HAS A MARRIAGE 
PROPOSITION. 

"Lina, I love you. If you were my wife I believe I would be 
as happy as it is possible to be." 

"Perhaps you do not believe it is possible for a mortal to be 
very happy. Remember, I am an old maid, past thirty-three, 
set in my convictions, loyal to my judgment; and you are six 
years younger, handsome in feature, domineering by nature, 
dignified by practice, and like attention more than you are will- 
ing to acknowledge. Besides, you are wealthy; came from an 
aristocratic family, and have never known the heartaches caused 
fey poverty. You are not in sympathy with my cherished ad- 
ventures. As a man you are impressive ; as a moralist you are 
mediocre ; as a statesman you would be a failure ; as a husband 
I do not know what you would be ; but I do know what you could 
be, or at least I think I know. But I would like to know why you 
xove me. It is interesting, very pleasant, I can say, to know that 
you love me." 

"I love you for many reasons: First, because you are good 
nd honest, Second, because you are beautiful in feature and 
orm. Third, because you are intellectual and have the courage 
) uphold your convictions." 

"It is so pleasant to hear you say these things, but these alone 
ithout the animation and enthusiasm of love from me would not 
•ke you happy. It takes ardor to make a sweetheart ; and it 
(5) 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 



takes something besides wealth and accomplishments in a suitor 
to make a woman happy." 

"Do you wish to discourage me?" 

"No, I positively do not. I like you for your candor; and I 
want you to be sure that you are making no mistake in the forma- 
tion of your opinions. You have known me intimately for eight 
years. The gushing period of my womanhood has passed. I 
think enough of you to be serious in the consideration of every- 
thing you have to say. I never had a real lover, and you have 
had two sweethearts, one of whom you would have married if she 
had not had the misfortune of an accident. I know the circum- 
stances through a secret source. You may not have been wholly 
to blame ; but I want you to know that I know the mystery of the 
accident. A man who would take advantage of a sweet, innocent 
girl shall never be a husband of mine." 

"Lina, you baffle me ; you accuse me of a crime. I ask you to 
tell me all you know." 

"I do not accuse you entirely and I am not believing you to be 
a criminal. I only say, ' A man who would take advantage of a 
sweet, innocent girl shall never be a husband of mine.' The time 
has not arrived yet for me to tell all I know ; until it does I want 
to be your friend. I would not do you an injustice." 

"You intimate that I am partly to blame for the accident. I 
demand an explanation, regardless of whom it may involve." 

"I do not wish to say any more about the matter now. Time 
and developments will tell what you are ; and since you are seek- 
ing my hand in marriage there are many subjects upon which I 
would like to know your thoughts. These subjects are of do- 
mestic, social, and political importance. Most of the hardships 
which the families of wage-earners and farmers on rented land 
have to endure can be traced to the unjust laws of unlimited land- 
owning. Unlimited land-owning is, always has been, and always 
will be the most perfect system of man-owning — slavery is a better 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 



name for it. You own twenty quarter-sections of land in Kansas. 
In other words, you have a lease upon as many lives as this land 
will sustain. These tracts of land represent the possibility of an 
existence of a limited number of human beings. If it is not these 
identical persons who will have to pay you tribute, it is others, up 
to the limit which the land will sustain. You have it in your power 
to get a third or more, of all this mass of humanity can produce. 
What moral right have you to exact it? Of course you have a 
legal right to take a third, or more, of all these people produce. 
This legal right is worth more to you than a dukedom. You and 
your posterity, if you have any, can live for ages without work, 
while some of these people on your land can never enjoy the com- 
forts of life. They are your slaves, and the law relieves you of all 
anxiety as to their physical welfare ; in this you have advantage 
of the chattel slave-owner. If some of these people die or move 
off, others anxious for an existence will move on. Neither you, 
nor any of your kin, produced this wealth to which you have title. 
Its selling value was caused by population coming near to it by 
immigration and railroads. Yet you are allowed to rent it and 
collect a tribute which is the cause of most of the poverty of this 
age, and you have an income without any personal effort what- 
ever; your fine talents are rusting out from idleness, or are ex- 
pended in motoring, baseball, horse-racing and the like. If I 
could arouse you to the injustice of the land and tax laws of this 
country I would like to consider every other thought you have. ,, 
" Lina, I am not prepared for such an effusion of ' Progress and 
Poverty.' I did not know you were a disciple of Henry George. 
I judge you have been a reader of The Appeal to Reason too. It 
is yourself that interests me most. It is hard for me to consider 
anything so complex as seems uppermost in your mind this even- 
ing. I came to admire you and listen to topics of a domestic 
nature. I do not feel qualified to meet you in argument on the 
abstruse afflictions of society. These afflictions, I confess, have 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 



not bothered me. I always thought I came into possession of what 
I own honorably. Human beings differ so widely that man-made 
laws cannot alleviate their personal defects. For instance, there 
is a Mr. Gano on one of my farms ; he had nothing but two horses 
and a pretty young wife five years ago when he went onto that 
farm; now he has three children, money in bank, and property 
enough to buy a farm of his own. He has made me a good offer 
on the farm where he lives. But I do not care to sell it. It is 
one of the best I have. I want it for a home when I get married, 
and desire to go back to a life similar to that of my boyhood. I 
enjoy country life more than city life. To be out where the colts, 
the calves, the pigs, and the chickens are happy and contented ; 
where the grass and grain are abundant; where every day is a 
blessing and every night a consolation, — there, where all nature 
appeals to the enjoyment of life, is the place to rear a family and 
enjoy old age. I have thought of you as a wife to help me occupy 
this farm ; so I declined Mr. Gano's offer." 

"Well, Mr. Blank — or perhaps I had as well call you Dash, as 
you so much desire — it is not difficult to get at your meaning. 
But, Dash Blank, I am not going to accept you as anything but 
a good friend. Not for a while anyhow. You are the first man 
to talk to me like this, but I am not ready to be a fiancee till I 
find out how you develop along the difficult lines of thought. 
You may have thought because I am an old maid that I am anx- 
ious to get married. I am just as anxious as a woman ought to 
be. But if I ever do marry I am going to know the man I marry 
from A to Z, etc. If there is any repenting to do I want to do it 
before marriage. I know bright young wives with nice healthy 
children, whose husbands seem to be good to them, regretting 
that they are married. They mope around with an injured ex- 
pression and say, ' I do not have the things I want. I wish I were 
a sweetheart instead of a wife.' Some of them lie abed while 
their husbands get breakfast, when there is nothing ailing them 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 



except laziness — if this can be called an ailment. These women 
live on farms, too. They do not seem to be so full of energy as 
the ideal you have in mind. I do not think a farm is the place 
to get the highest degree of enjoyment. There is too much iso- 
lation on the farm. But if I were on the farm in the capacity 
of a housekeeper I would not be like the woman of whom I speak. 
I should try to do my part. I only spoke of her case to remind 
you that good women sometimes lack energy in the capacity of 
wives. You do not seem inclined to think much about the hard- 
ships caused by the unjust distribution of the natural wealth, the 
land, of the country. You like to be an aristocrat. You seem 
to have no sympathy for the maids and youths who are the vic- 
tims of the conditions of which I speak." 

"Lina, I am not unsympathetic where sympathy is deserved. 
It takes a certain amount of hardships and opposition, too, to 
develop the best traits there are in young people, and Mr. Roose- 
velt's ideas of large families are good. It is not the children 
reared in ease and luxury, who accomplish the most in the great 
achievements. Because Fate placed me in affluence is no reason 
why I should shirk any of the requirements of a man. I intended 
to speak of the things which seem uppermost in your consideration 
of me, but in following my natural inclination everything escaped 
my mind except the possibilities of yourself ; but if you will allow 
me half the talk I'll get around in detail to your idiosyncrasy. 
It is going to be no easy matter to make you understand my 
views, and you must have patience with me in my delineations. 
A man cannot do his best on complicated subjects when animated 
by the charms of a beautiful woman with whom he has not been 
alone very much. If such a woman becomes his wife I believe 
he will, in time, become so tempered that nothing would be too 
intricate for him to do his best in her presence." 

"Well, I am pleased with what you say." 

"I am trying to have you pleased with all I say, and it is 



10 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

going to be very hard to do if I remain entirely true to myself, 
though I feel I must be entirely true to myself if I be true to you. 
Some one has said, 'Those who have temperaments alike should 
not marry.' If there is any good authority for those holding 
opposite views marrying, I think we are qualified at least in one 
respect, and this conclusion leads me to take up the land and 
tax questions. Those governments which have upheld property 
rights and individualism under democratic management are most 
enduring. These kinds of governments tax the land and all other 
property in proportion to the requirements of the government; 
and if a man holds thousands of acres and pays the taxes assessed 
thereon he fills his mission as a subject of this government. Some 
fail to do this, and become renters. Bad luck may have been the 
cause in some cases, but in more cases it has been bad manage- 
ment, poor business capacity. I can cite you to Mr. Agee, who 
a few years ago inherited almost as much real estate as I did: 
today he is bankrupt. Much of his land is being sold for taxes. 
He made a poor choice of tenants. His land was occupied by a 
shiftless lot of farmers and the whole community suffered 
as a consequence. Now am I to blame if I should buy these 
lands and rent them to enterprising young men who will make 
the farms produce, enabling me to pay the taxes to build school- 
houses and public roads? Because I do not go into the fields 
and work does not signify that I am not filling my mission as a 
man. Head work has always commanded better returns than 
hand work. Because I like to ride in an automobile and attend 
ball games for recreation should not be placed to my discredit. 
Everything helpful and entertaining that human beings do should 
be patronized. You seem to have a morbid conclusion concern- 
ing our land and tax laws. There never was a country better 
equipped to give individual merit a chance to attain the highest 
reward. What a fine galaxy to contemplate, beginning with 
Lincoln as a statesman, Rockefeller as a financier, Edison as an 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 11 

inventor, Hurley as a railroad manager, — throughout all the in- 
dustries we have known men to climb from bottom to top by indi- 
vidual merit! It is not because of our laws that some persons 
are worthless and poverty-stricken; such persons were born 
without capacity to think; without inclination to work; and 
these kinds come more often from well-to-do parents than from 
the energetic laborers. 

" Those who are healthy, industrious, and have capacity, can 
earn a competence in any vocation, and our splendid State in- 
stitutions provide for the unfortunate and dangerous members 
of society. The more wealthy a citizen is, the more he contrib- 
utes to the support of these institutions by paying taxes; so 
you see every one should have access to land on the same terms, 
paying market price and a uniform tax. I never can be in sym- 
pathy with paternalism or socialism as government propositions. 
Opposition is the creator of the strenuous. It is so throughout 
all nature. Most persons with plenty to eat and nothing to do 
will get fat and careless, indolent and immoral. Nature has 
cruel ways of disposing of surpluses, and anything man does in 
making laws is more humane than the laws of nature ; so I con- 
clude that it is not worth while to worry and fret because every- 
body is not prosperous and happy, any more than it is worth 
while to worry because every living thing throughout nature 
unmercifully feeds upon and destroys every other living thing 
not powerful enough to defend itself." 

"Ah, Dash, you are not as kind-hearted as I would like to see 
every human being be in considering the miseries traceable to 
man-made laws. It is not our mission to change and modify some 
of the laws of nature where we see pain, cruelty and death. It 
being possible, I would gladly help create a state of existence among 
animals as well as men wherein no creature would give any other 
creature pain or fright. To do this we must first prevent men 
preying upon each other as wild animals do. Last February I 



12 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

remember one day when you collected $700 in rents on farm pro- 
ducts and on that day I visited one of. my relatives from whom 
you received money on that day and there was destitution which 
made me heart-sick ; little sickly children going without sufficient 
food and clothing in order that a landlord might have cash rent. 
It does not speak well of your kindness to excuse poverty and 
cruelty because you see it so plainly in Nature's laws. When 
civilization shall have advanced to its highest possibilities we will 
have ceased making paupers by creating millionaires; we will 
have enabled every worthy young man to get a home of his own 
where a happy family can be nourished and educated; we will 
have relegated poor old maids, and rich old bachelors to a sense of 
their misspent lives ; we will have made it impossible for non- 
residents and foreigners to purchase land for no other purpose 
than to pay interest on investments. You, and ,men in your 
position, favor State laws to regulate freight rates to pay interest 
only on the original cost of railroads and equipments. You ob- 
ject to the dear people having to pay interest on watered stock — 
falsified or bogus stock is a better name ; yet you justify collect- 
ing rents on a basis from $50 to $100 per acre on lands that did 
not cost $3 per acre. Your land is falsely capitalized for the 
purpose of robbing those who till the soil. Lands should have no 
selling value above what the improvements cost. No wonder 
there is a scarcity of food products; no wonder there are over- 
populated cities and a scarcity of people in the country to till the 
lands ; no wonder the country is not producing on thousands of 
acres held for speculation when human hogs are allowed to keep 
the workers away from the soil unless they, the workers, will pay 
interest on investments to keep a lot of social drones in the cities 
who spend their time on pug dogs and automobiles when they are 
not interested in scandals and divorce suits. I believe you will 
yet be convinced that unlimited land-owning is the very worst 
kind of slavery. If I did not think so I would dismiss you. I 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 13 

must admit that I am more interested in you than I ever have 
been in any man who showed an inclination to give me attention 
as a suitor. I like your lustrous eyes, your dark wavy hair, your 
six-foot height and 200-pound heft. I like your knowledge of 
books and your manly bearing. But I object to your cigars and 
your reckless optimism. 

" Your belief in telepathy and immortality is beyond my power 
to elucidate. Oh, pshaw! I've gone too far. I have opened the 
secret to the mystery of the poor little girl who came so near being 
your wife. But thanks to the plenitude of my knowledge of this 
mystery, I may # as well tell you that I know you made the poor 
little girl believe in telepathy and the immortality of the soul. 
Sometime, Dash, I am going to reveal to you every thought and 
conviction I have. There is my call to come to the office. This 
has been a pleasant evening to me. Will you come again to- 
morrow evening? You are the most attentive listener with whom 
I talk. This telephone work is very tiresome. One has to listen 
to everything and obey orders." 



II. 

WRANGLING OVER BAD HABITS. 

" Good-evening, Dash; glad to see you." 

"I cherish all the greetings you have to offer, Lina ; I think I 
never felt more buoyant. The thought of being alone with you 
this evening has taken me into a realm of happiness which has 
given me a new interest in every living, moving, growing thing. 
I know, beyond the shadow of doubt, I am more deeply in love 
with you than I have ever been with any woman." 

"Well, you seem able to go direct to your favorite theme with- 
out preliminary. Ah, Dash, you have been stimulating with wine 
again. Am I to learn that you have a complete list of bad habits?" 

"I do not know that the list is complete, but I am willing that 
you shall know every bad habit I have, and taking a little wine 
at regular intervals does not seem to me to be a bad habit. I was 
created to stint at nothing. I believe in enjoying everything 
good, — in moderation, of course. I do not indulge in excesses. 
You must not accuse me of intemperance. I never was in better 
shape, physically or mentally. I dwell mostly on the good and the 
beautiful. You are connected with my thoughts more than any- 
thing else lately. Your pretty face has been a source of pleasure 
to me since my automobile started for this place one hour ago. 
The way I sped over the nice roads was exhilarating. The in- 
fluence of the Havana cigar, together with the drink of port wine 
which I took before starting, made my trip enjoyable, but the 
completion of my enjoyment I expect to have in your society." 

"It seems to me, Dash, you are rather more demonstrative 
than is usual in advances complimentary, although I confess I 
do not know much about the advances of impulsive young men." 

(14) 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 15 

"You are too dear to me to expect any straight-laced, memo- 
rized compliments. I shall talk to you extemporaneously ; a man 
in earnest does not need notes to compliment a woman like you ; 
so you must not expect formality. I would like to hold your hand 
while I tell you how you have taken possession of my hopes and 
desires." 

"Mr. Blank, when you win an intimacy there is time enough to 
be demonstrative. You had as well confine yourself to words; 
words which are not animated by wine nor flavored with Havanas. 
I hoped to bring you into a philosophical discussion on the im- 
portant social and political questions of this age. I am no giddy 
girl yearning for compliments. I am a grown woman, with a 
knowledge of right and wrong which you cannot swerve. — Did you 
see anything startling among your tenantry today?" 

"Yes, I did. I took dinner at Mrs. B.'s. She wanted me to 
suggest the kind of furniture her husband should buy for the new 
house which I have about completed on the farm near Plainville. 
Her husband seemed anxious, too ; so we all three examined the 
catalogue of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., Chicago. I felt a little 
out of my element, but I was surprised to see the kind of furniture 
she had selected for a three-roomed house. She wanted a center 
table that was listed at $48, a set of chairs at $24, a bedstead at 
$36. I did not want to pass opinion on her selection, but she in- 
sisted ; so I told her I thought she was a little extravagant in her 
selection. Moving such furniture from place to place in rented 
houses would be a hardship to renters in their circumstances. She 
flew into a fit of anger, talked loudly and indecently ; said I was 
like all the other men — thought a woman shouldn't have anything 
nice to look at — and finished by saying she was going to have them 
anyhow, if it took a team to buy them. I felt embarrassed, and 
Mr. B. looked it. Mr. B. is a nice man, but could not pay his 
rent in full this year, but I found out the reason why : his wife 
does not know any more about economy than a hen knows about 



16 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

arithmetic. I saw two of the children out in the yard hauling a 
muddy dog in a $15 baby wagon and a tortoise head-comb trampled 
into the mud. Three silver knives and two forks were in the path 
to the well. A silk umbrella was being made the connecting romp- 
ing-stick between a seven-year-old girl and a big husky pup. The 
girl let loose of her end when I met them in the path, and the pup 
victoriously shook the umbrella like he would shake a rat. There 
were clothes-pins on the ground in every direction, and two rock- 
ing-chairs were in the yard; had been left out in the rain over- 
night. One of these had a rope fastened to the front end of the 
rockers, and the little girl got into the chair and asked a brother 
to take hold the rope and give her a ride. There was a general 
appearance of waste and extravagance all about the yard. No 
man could succeed with such a woman for a wife. I have traced 
the poverty here to its source. There will not be rent enough 
collected on this place to pay taxes, yet I am going to let this 
family stay. There was something in my experience today to 
excite the mirth of a monkey." 

"Did you get excited?" 

"Now I do not like to be side-tracked in that style." 

"0, excuse me, please; it was impudent in me to ask that 
question; I did not mean any offense. What was your mirth- 
provoking experience?" 

"I took dinner at Mrs. B.'s. Mr. B. was not at home, and I 
wanted to see him before I left, so she and her children and myself 
ate dinner together. She told me how well she had been reared, 
and if she had not done it I never would have found it out. She 
never had to do dirty work, wash, do the dishes and the like, and 
it did mortify her so to be married to a man who had no manage- 
ment or business capacity. She first apologized for the dinner, 
but it was more because her husband was a poor provider than from 
lack of skill on her^part that she made the apology. At her girl- 
hood home there was never anything but harmony in the family 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 17 

management. Her mother was a society woman and her father 
was a business man who could buy a dish for ten cents and sell it 
for a dollar. 'Papa was the real thing, he was,' and she, herself, 
was the Belle of Hill Town. When she made her debut all the 
young men in the country wanted to go with her. All this gush 
she gave me before her husband arrived and before we looked at 
the furniture catalogue. She was suddenly reminded of her 
twenty-five-dollar set of furs the pup had found in the yard where 
the children had left them, and remarked that they were the only 
evidences left of her refined girlhood. She then grilled Mr. B. 
I do not like to think of her as a wife, and it amused me greatly 
to think what a refined girl she must have been." 

"I knew her when she was a girl, and it puzzled me that Mr. B. 
should choose a girl like she was when there were so many sensible, 
good-looking girls in his neighborhood. Girls, too, who had been 
raised on a farm. She was always extravagant. She one time 
bought a pair of spectacles, trimmed in gold, paying $20 for them. 
That was about the time she got her expensive furs. Gaudy? 
Well, she was a perfect personification of tinsel gaudiness. But 
she is not to blame. She is one of the many ridiculous products of 
excessive wealth. Her father was a grafter and her mother a 
society woman who doted on $40 hats, diamond rings, and $100 
gowns; who never gave a thought to the earning or purchasing 
value of a dollar. She believed her mission, if she ever gave the 
matter any thought at all, was to dress and entertain. She was 
what was considered a fortunate woman, married a rich man who 
traveled and had a fine income. He had inherited great wealth, 
and married this girl because of her pretty face and form, and 
lavished his wealth on her every desire. She may have been 
naturally weak along practical lines of thought, but I believe if she 
had had responsibilities and hardships to contend with she would 
have raised a better girl. The mother is trying to pose as one 
high-born and the girl is hindered as a wife and mother by the 



18 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

luxurious extravagance under which she grew to womanhood. 
That husband of hers must be weak in management. But why- 
do you keep a renter who is so shiftless?" 

"I'm doing it just as an experiment, and to convince you that 
you are wrong in contending that the poverty on rented farms is 
traceable to an unjust system of land tenure. Will you take a 
ride in my new automobile? It will only take two hours to see 
many of my fine farms. I hope the day is not far off when I can 
say our farms." 

"Yes, I'll go with you to see your farms. You are a puzzle 
to me, Dash. There are so many bright, vivacious, pretty, young 
girls here in this place, most of whom would be glad to go with 
you anywhere, and here you are insisting on an old maid being 
your life companion. Why are you so unlike other men?" 

"For the same reason that you are unlike other women. The 
woman I seek for a wife knows how to preserve her health and 
strength. She does not patronize the ridiculous fads of fashion. 
Her desire to be good is greater than her desire to be popular. 
She knows the weaknesses of her sex well enough to avoid the 
pain and misery resulting therefrom; and above all else she is 
kind-hearted and generous, well qualified to be a wife and mother, 
and possessing mental powers which will keep any good man in 
the narrow path of^rectitude." 

"You seem most complimentary when you are smoking. I 
would rather see you perfectly moral than to hear the nice things 
you say about me. I have come to think so much about you 
lately, Dash, that I am restless and uneasy, fearing that I may 
not act wisely. If I could get you to quit using wine and tobacco 
I believe the other reformations I desire would come as a conse- 
quence of these bad habits being abandoned. My observation 
of men has taught me that intoxicants and tobacco are injurious 
to the moral, mental, and physical welfare of the race. You 
speak of my being generous : I am not and never shall be generous 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 19 

enough to marry a man addicted to these bad habits. Think of 
what happened in Topeka not long ago. Mrs. Boyer shot and 
instantly killed by a man under the influence of liquor, who was 
seeking her hand in marriage. It is not my desire to commence 
a long lecture, but it is my desire to have you know that I am not 
generous enough to bad habits to marry them, be they ever so 
perfectly wrapped up in the person of a wealthy, intelligent, in- 
fluential, popular man. Prohibition in Kansas was the greatest 
blessing that ever came to the State, and if tobacco were put 
under the prohibitive laws the next greatest blessing could be 
accomplished. The high price and scarcity of human food would 
be solved in a great measure if these awful habits were forced out 
of our civilization. I shall not exact any promises from you. A 
promise is a weak thing compared with a conviction, and if I can- 
not convince you that these habits are wrong, I shall not ask you 
to quit them." 

"Lina, you never used tobacco nor drank wine; your obser- 
vation upon which you base your conclusions is confined to a 
few cases where the temperaments of the individuals may have 
been the cause of the awful deeds. There is so much to consider 
when we go to tracing the cause of crimes. I might say that 
Thomas Edison, the greatest inventor of this age, was kept in a 
tranquil state of mind by keeping a chew of tobacco in his mouth 
while inventing the telephone, and make as good a point for the 
use of tobacco as you made against liquor in referring to the mur- 
der in Topeka. I might also refer you to Victor Murdock or 
Uncle Joe Cannon as having been powerful in legislative halls 
because they were addicted to these popular habits which you call 
bad habits. I am not ready to admit that prohibition of the use 
of liquor and tobacco would be panaceas for social and political 
diseases. Some of the ablest statesmen have used both. I use 
tobacco as a means of enjoyment. A kind of tranquil feeling 
comes to me when I am in good health from using it in both forms. 



20 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

When I am. sick I have no desire to use it or anything else. As to 
wine, I have divine authority for using it. Refer to the scrip- 
tures : Judges ix, 13; Deut. xiv, 26; Gen. xlix, 11; Ps. civ, 15." 

"Ah, Dash, you make a smooth argument for these modern 
curses, but intuitively I feel that you are wrong. However, we 
will drop the matter for the present and take the automobile 
ride. Ed. Howe, the editor of the Atchison Globe, says an old 
maid is never satisfied till she becomes reconciled. I am satis- 
fied to be a 'spin,' as Mr. Howe defines her, rather than violate 
conclusions of morality. You have some traits I admire. Your 
honesty makes you worthy of my friendship." 

"I infer, then, that my morality, without considering my hon- 
esty, would not hold you as a friend, eh?" 

" Be calm, Dash ; I do not want to offend you. Your morality 
alone would not secure me as a companion to ride with you over 
your fine estates. It is because I believe it possible that you 
may come to look upon morality and social economy with more 
enlightened views that I desire to retain your friendship." 

"Miss Lina Gona, I cannot believe that you are beating back 
my advances as a suitor because of my weakness in using tobacco 
and wine. There must be something else. Something connected 
with the death of that dear little girl whose body lies mouldering 
in yonder cemetery. I have a letter written one week before she 
died, the contents of which would surprise you. It would prove 
to you that I am not guilty of anything you may suspect. In 
this letter I am requested never to reveal its contents, and but 
for one reason I would have destroyed it long ago. You, no doubt, 
were honest when you hinted that you were posted on talk secretly 
circulated among relatives at the time of her death. No one dared 
to make the accusation. From you, and you only, djd I ever hear 
anything direct. Do you want me to show you this letter which 
I promised by a reply to the letter soon afterwards, never to reveal? 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 21 

I have it in a private drawer in the bank. If I had not known that 
you suspected me I would have destroyed it." 

"No, Dash, I do not want you to break any promises to prove 
to me that you are a moral man in the case of that unfortunate 
girl. She being my niece, of course made you think there was a 
possibility of the case being investigated by a prosecution. I 
am glad to know that you are prepared to prove your honor. 
I never could believe to my entire satisfaction that you were 
immoral, mean and dishonest along that line of action. It is 
only your personal habits in regard to wine and tobacco that I 
had reference to in today's talk. If I were your wife, or ex- 
pected to be, I should want to see that letter. Something more 
startling than has yet been discovered will have to come up be- 
fore I could believe you harmed little Allit." 

"I feel better since you have been more explicit. I think you 
are in search of an ideal for a husband which will be hard to find. 
I have noticed that men who have no bad habits are poor, sickly, 
weak, over-pious, effeminate specimens who do not do much in 
the manly walks of life. I think your ideal man is a missionary." 

"I think it very ungenteel in you to try to belittle mission- 
aries. 'Manly walks of life/ indeed! There are Mr. Roosevelt 
and Mr. Bryan, who do not have these bad habits. You surely 
cannot say that either of these are weak, poor, over-pious, effem- 
inate specimens who do not do much in the manly walks of life. 
Be candid, now." 

"Ah, well, hang it all! I shall not say anything detrimental 
to Roosevelt except his use of the word disinterested, in his 
American Ideals. I think he is about as near perfection as a 
man can be — judging, of course, from what I have read and heard. 
I confess I did not think of him when I made the sweeping as- 
sertion. But really, does neither he nor Bryan use tobacco? 
I've heard his daughter does." 

"If either of them uses tobacco I never heard of it." 



22 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

"Guess you are running a bluff on me. I do not see how 
Roosevelt could have been so popular among the cowboys and 
rough riders and be free from those habits. I got the impression 
somewhere — think maybe it was from reading memoirs of Andrew 
Jackson, who smoked a cob pipe — that to be a Democrat in good 
standing was to smoke, drink, chew and be willing to fight on small 
provocation. I'm willing to admit that I am not versed on the 
habits of presidents and preachers, having never associated with 
them, but I have known preachers to indulge in these habits. 
Maybe, though, they were not the kind out of which good mis- 
sionaries are made. I would like to know exactly what kind of a 
man you want for a husband. I do not believe the Ideal you are 
looking for is in the Republican or Democratic parties. Perhaps 
he is a Socialist?" 

"No, sir, he is not a Socialist, though I must confess I do not 
know anything about Socialists." 

"Oh, now I have it. He is a Prohibitionist." 

"Yes, he will have to be a Prohibitionist ; but that is not all he 
will have to be. Some of Roosevelt's qualities, some of Bryan's 
qualities, some of your qualities, too, he will have. You are honest 
enough, cheerful enough, large enough, generous enough, healthy 
enough, handsome enough, wealthy enough, — yes, too wealthy, 
but you have not developed or acquired the moral habits that I 
admire, and until you do you'll never be a husband of mine. I 
am very cheerful about the kind of man I want, but I have never 
seen him yet. I am not like a silly girl in her teens claiming she 
does not want a man, when she knows very well she desires a good, 
worthy man more than anything else. I was once a silly girl in 
her teens ; so speak from experience as well as observation on this 
theme. — We had better go for that ride, Dash, and drop this 
habitual wrangling, for I expect this will be the last ride or 'joy 
trip' as some call it, that we will take together this fall." 

"Why, what's up now? Why are you going to cut out the joy 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 23 

trips? I have been looking forward to these as chief sources of 
pleasure. If you knew how dear you were to me at times you 
would not be so indifferent ; maybe you would reconsider." 

" ' At times' ! Now a new query has come into my imagination. 
If you had said 'at all times' I would have been more impressed 
with the quality of your devotion, which, I am now convinced, 
requires a very thorough analysis. You may discover, too, some 
day, that there is more pleasure in pursuit than possession. I am 
not intending to avoid you or entirely desert you, Dash, but have 
made up my mind to spend the winter in Topeka. I have friends 
there who have promised me lucrative employment." 

"Lina, you can spring more surprises upon a fellow than any 
one I have known. Would you mind telling me what kind of 
employment? Surely you have not secured a political pull on the 
pay-rolls of the State?" 

"I have not decided yet just what I shall do, but I am quite 
sure whatever I do will be respectable. This is in reply to your 
mild insinuation about a political pull. There is nothing more 
honorable than good service on the pay-rolls of the State, regard- 
less of any opinion Mr. Dash Blank may have." 

"Well, I may as well tell you that I am really sorry you intend 
leaving here. I shall be lonesome, Lina, very lonesome. There 
is no one among my many lady friends here who can entertain me 
like you can. Would you be willing to stay if I gave up my bad 
habits?" 

"No, Dash, I do not ask you to make any sacrifice for me. I 
am making none for you. If you did anything of the kind it 
would be in the nature of a promise, not from conviction. If I 
cannot convince you that these habits are wrong you will never 
succeed in quitting them. You need to be lonesome, Dash, very 
lonesome ; it may develop you into a perfect man. I'll correspond 
with you. Your letters, I'm sure, will be very interesting. Be- 



24 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

sides, absence may lead to endearment. I must admit I am about 
half in love with you. I'm getting impatient for that ride." 

"If this is to be the last ride I shall have with you this fall, 
I would like to make it a long one. I would enjoy being out at 
least half the night, the weather is so perfect — a full moon and just 
cool enough to be pleasant. 

" A new thought has come into my mind. I want you to name 
my new automobile ; give it one short and sweet like your own. I 
think Lina Gona is about the prettiest name I ever heard ; still, 
it is not suitable for an automobile. The name need only be known 
to you and me, limited to our correspondence, in which I expect to 
be greatly enthused. Name it something easy to write and easy 
to spell." 

"How would 'It' do, with a capital I?" 

"You couldn't have done better if you had taken a month, for 
it is really ' It.' How well you have done in this naming business. 
If ever I should have anything else to name I am going to apply 
to you. Remember this, will you?" 

"I surely shall." 

"Dear Lina, I am aware that I shall have to study man and 
his relations to society more closely and thoroughly than I ever 
thought of doing if I expect to retain your good-will. I see 
plainly a courtship can be maintained with you only as a sacred 
business proposition, in which you propose to analyze every action 
and its motive. You have impressed me more seriously on this 
subject than I was aware of before you talked of going to Topeka 
to spend the winter. You will probably go into high society there 
and drop me altogether because I am not polished in manners and 
matters of dress and address." 

"No, Dash, I am not going to Topeka with the expectation of 
entering into what you term high society. I do not believe men 
are any better in high society toward the women with whom they 
form attachments than men are in what you might wrongfully call 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 25 

low society. That society where virtue, kindness, gentleness, in 
short, where a high standard of morality is cherished, is the best 
society. It may be, and often is, where poverty prevails. How- 
ever, I am glad to see you so serious on this subject. Life and all 
the mysterious connections which tend to make us regard each 
other with a deep feeling of respect, move us to make the highest 
kind of resolutions. I have resolved to give you every chance and 
plenty of time to prove what you are. I think a woman is foolish 
who marries a man to make him good. I have seen enough of that 
kind of foolishness to convince me that most of the divorces are 
traceable to such marriages. — But say, are we never going to take 
that ride?" 

"Sure! Now, It may surprise you by proving itself an Ideal — 
searching for ideals being one of your fads. I'm sure it is competent 
for the occasion of showing an Ideal Woman how to enjoy an 
Ideal Ride. I am trying to give you a Capital Compliment, 
suitable to your Capital Conclusion of choosing the Capital City 
in which to enjoy yourself a few months." 

"I am not an idealist, though I get some genuine pleasure from 
my imagination, and I think you have a mistaken idea of the mean- 
ing of the word ideal. Those things of which you speak are all 
real, not ideal. If you had used the word perfect, perhaps you 
would have come nearer saying what }^ou meant, but I am not 
a perfect woman." 



III. 

SEARCHING THE CAPITAL. 

Tofeka, Kansas, Nov. 6, 1910. 
Mr. Dash Blank: I am going to omit the Dear Sir after 
this, because of its formality. I desire to be informally friendly 
with you as long as I live. I expect you will occupy my thoughts 
as much as any other person as long as I remain in Topeka. I 
have secured a room in the western part of Topeka, about half-way 
between the Governor's Mansion and the Capitol Building, where 
I can have just such seclusion as I desire, having access to the pub- 
lic libraries, and can have the full enjoyment of this splendid mod- 
ern civilization. Here is what Ruby Kirt McLean has to say in the 
Daily Capital: "For many years Kansas has enjoyed comparative 
cleanliness of politics, due to the absence of the saloon vote. 
Herds of men voting for the lowest and worst form of govern- 
ment are unknown in the Sunflower State. No longer is the 
saloon a factor in the development and growth of cities in Kansas. 
What have been the results of prohibition in Kansas? The direct 
and immediate ravages committed by the saloon as a social sore 
are unknown to our people. No city in the Union the size of 
Topeka, unless it is having an evanescent boom, is growing more 
rapidly or substantially than Topeka. More actual building is 
going on here than in Kansas City, Mo., and the Capital City is 
fast becoming the great convention city of the West. A prohi- 
bition State surrounded by non-prohibition States, it has gained 
more in population than any State adjoining it. In ten years 
Kansas has increased her wealth more than a billion dollars. 
Tax-rolls show a greater wealth per capita in Kansas than any 
other State. Employers of large forces of labor, such as the Santa 

(26) 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 27 

Fe Railway, state that better results are obtained from employees 
in Kansas than from any other section of the country. 

Yesterday being one of the most beautiful days I have ever 
known — possibly it was because I thought of your being in love 
with me made it so beautiful — I concluded it was a good time to 
climb to the top of the dome on the Capitol Building. When look- 
ing out over this splendid city, I thought of you wondering if I 
were going to Topeka to get into high society. There were sev- 
eral ladies and gentlemen in the balcony of the dome, who were 
there when I arrived. I assure you I went up alone ; however, I 
entered into the very highest society possible. These people 
were sociable and friendly, like all the Topekans with whom I 
have become acquainted. I became unusually happy. 

The Washburn College and all the important, magnificent 
buildings were shown to me, pointed out separately. I am already 
more in love with Topeka than all your farms in western Kansas. 

The new Topeka Daily Capital building, east from the north- 
east corner of the State Capitol grounds, is really the prettiest 
thing in sight. I was taken through all the departments of this 
marvelous printing plant, which Arthur Capper has about com- 
pleted, by an old gentleman whom the management furnishes 
especially to show visitors through, for a stranger would get lost 
and not know how to get out. 

Mr. Capper has put in a new $30,000 printing-press. These 
are the publications known as the Capper Publications : Farmers 
Mail and Breeze, Topeka Daily Capital, Kansas Weekly Capital, 
Missouri Valley Farmer, Nebraska Farm Journal, and The House- 
hold. 

While looking out over this most beautiful of Kansas cities, 
I had an exquisite sense of the greatness of Kansas and her people. 
It seems to me there is a chance to get very near perfection in 
civil government, having this splendor as a central incentive. 
What splendid enthusiasm would go abroad over the State if 



28 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

every school boy and girl could visit this Capitol Building, ex- 
amine its contents, and admire its architecture. It must be seen 
to be appreciated. The State Library in the third story and the 
Historical Library in the fifth story are as completely arranged 
and orderly conducted as can be, and this can also be truthfully 
said of all the departments so far as I have examined. 

My time is so fully taken up with realities that my mind has 
had but little to do with idealities. I feel a strong spirituality 
or Soul Force insisting that I devote my life to literature. There 
are so many social and civil questions which our reelected gov- 
ernor is trying to introduce to the newly elected legislators ; and 
none of these questions are so important as trying to regulate 
freight rates, which, if limited by legislation so that only a low 
rate of interest on the " physical valuation" of railroads can be 
realized, it will suggest that the incomes on other industries, and 
especially rents on farms, be regulated by law, so that a farmer 
shall realize according to a physical valuation of his farm. 

If a land-owner were limited by law to asking only one-fourth 
of the products of his farms upon which he collects rent, the physi- 
cal valuation of land would be reduced to correspond with this 
limitation. There would be nothing unjust about this. The 
farm land in Kansas is not worth from fifty to one hundred dollars 
per acre because it took that much money per acre to produce it. 
Farms are more falsely capitalized than railroads. The original 
cost of a farm is no more than the amount of money it cost to 
break the land and build improvements upon it. Everything 
above^this is speculation value. This speculation value is what 
makes food products so high. Men are being forced into the 
cities because they cannot pay this monopoly value placed upon 
farm land by this unjust speculative process. 

Governor Stubbs surely has the insight and the political power 
to do more for this country than any man living. Here is what 
he said the day after his last election : 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 29 

" I would rather be elected Governor of Kansas by ten or twelve 
thousand majority in the face of a desperate fight from the rail- 
roads, brewery agents, ex-jointists, stand-pat Republicans, their 
allies and emissaries, than to have been elected by one hundred 
thousand majority and had the support of all these interests on a 
compromise basis. I regard the victory in Kansas, under all the 
circumstances, as a great triumph for progressive Republicanism. 
I expect to continue the management of the State institutions and 
the public business of this State along exactly the same lines that 
have been pursued during the last two years, and do not know of 
any material changes that will be made in my policies. I am 
thankful beyond expression to the voters who have stood so loyally 
beside me in this great fight for a better government, and promise 
that all the energy and strength of my life will be used in promoting 
the welfare and protecting the rights and interests of all the people 
of this commonwealth. " 

You see, Dash, we have a governor who has the welfare of the 
people at heart as much as did Lincoln fifty years ago. I see by the 
county paper out there that you have bought several thousand 
more acres of land in Nebraska and Texas. Why will you be so 
greedy in monopolizing? Why did you not use that money in 
improving the farm you already owned so that your tenants could 
have more of the comforts of life? As sure as the sun shines there 
is a time coming when your income on these farms will be limited 
to physical valuation or first cost. You told me your uncle bought 
most of the land you inherited at four dollars per acre. Six per 
cent, interest on four dollars is twenty-four cents per year for each 
acre. That is all you are entitled to, according to the policies 
which are going to be tried on railroad rates. All the rent you get 
above twenty-four cents per acre is taken by law from the poor 
farmers who either have to tend your farms, work for wages, or 
let their families starve. 



30 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

A good life, lived with a purpose of benefitting all mankind, 
is the grandest masterpiece in the religious sphere. I would like 
to see you become deeply religious. What I mean by deeply re- 
ligious is that you would appeal to your conscience, the essence of 
good which is within you, when you have such vast business 
opportunities upon which to apply your financial skill. I do not 
mean that you should build churches and make long prayers, nor 
be a Sunday School superintendent, or anything along that line. 
The God, or the personified goodness, within your own being is 
what you need to worship. Material achievements, getting 
money and land, — without spiritual guidance, appealing to that 
sense of right and wrong, — have been the ruin of many a capable 
man. 

If you were as good in soul actions as you are in business trans- 
actions, if you were as anxious to be righteous as to be rich in 
worldly goods, and if your personal habits were freed from tobacco 
and wine, I think you would make a model husband, a perfect 
man. I am a good deal more interested in your dual existence 
that I have ever been in any other man's dualism. 

I hope I have made it clear to you that I am wanting to love 
you, and hoping that I may influence you to a perfect discern- 
ment of good and bad laws, good and bad habits, and good and 
bad achievements. 

If you could know the anxiety and suffering the first settlers 
of that country had to endure, you would be a more sympathetic 
man. When I was a young girl about ten or twelve years old, I 
was deeply impressed with the hardships we all had to bear. One 
time about three o'clock in the afternoon I went out into the sun- 
burnt cornfields to take water to my brothers, who still had hopes 
of getting a crop. The hot winds had been blowing for several 
days ; perspiration had caused the fine dust to settle all over their 
faces ; they looked sad and weary, but greeted me kindly ; there 
was no crop raised the year before, consequently their horses were 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 31 

poor and weak, having had no grain for several days. The situa- 
tion and the prospect caused such a sadness to come over me that 
I could not talk without crying. My oldest brother knew it was 
my sympathy for the horses and brothers that made me so grieved ; 
so, handing me the water-jug, he said: " Better go back to the 
house, little girlie ; it is too hot and dirty out here for you." 
I shall never forget that trip back to the house. My dirty little 
brown feet were sore from having no shoes to wear, and tender 
because hot dust and last year's sandburs were prevalent every- 
where. There had not been rain enough to sprout all the sand- 
burs since the weather had gotten warm enough to make them 
grow. On arriving at the house, another picture of despondency 
was in view. My poor old mother was sitting in the shade of the 
sod house scraping some new potatoes no larger than marbles, 
hoping to get a nice supper for her dear children. Her calico dress 
was in shreds, but it was clean. "Better lie down and rest, Lina 
dear, as soon as you water the chickens, — you look so tired." 
After saying this her poor old wrinkled face again showed the 
anxiety she had for her children, live stock, and crops. 

The dear pretty little chickens as they came to meet me from 
every direction, eager for fresh water, turned my mind from the 
sadness which had been such a burden. But alas! there were not 
more than two quarts of kaffir-corn between them and starvation. 

From the barnyard I went back to the house. My mother 
had rearranged the things in the two-roomed house. My nice, 
clean little bed had been placed near the window where the wind 
was making a subdued noise on the wire screen. This musical 
sadness soon lulled me to sleep. Sleep, blessed state of forget- 
fulness where troubled minds get new strength! It seemed but a 
few moments, though it was hours afterward, when my dear 
mother's voice awoke me with "Lina dear, take Taxy now and 
drive in the cows, and I'll help you milk after supper. Your 
brothers are going to take the spare team and go to town after 



32 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

chicken feed and groceries.' ' Taxy was a playful young puppy 
not more than four months old at that time, and he, two calves 
and a little colt were the happiest things on the place. The wind 
had ceased some, and the dreadful hot sunshine had given up to a 
warm steady wind. The sleep had refreshed me so much that life 
in the phase of a full moon seemed to be full of blessings. 

I had not gone far along the cow-path when Taxy became 
playfully impatient because of my slowness. He was ahead in 
the path, and several times had whirled round and round trying 
to catch his tail. Seemingly he knew this was enjoyment for 
me, for every little while he would return, barking, and playfully 
grab at my striped duck dress. I thought this was the prettiest 
dress mother had ever made, and on former trips of this kind he 
had taken the skirt into his mouth and swung back with preten- 
tious anger, growled as though he was in mortal combat with 
something dangerous. I had given him a trouncing for acting 
this way, and he was careful not to go too far in his attacks. I 
was very happy for a little while. On the trip back, when the 
cows were switching their tails and swinging their heads to their 
sides, trying in vain to get relief from the annoyance of flies, I 
noticed how gaunt and tired they seemed. The grass was so short 
they could not get enough even by working hard all day. Then 
I thought of the poor little calves, how impatient and hungry they 
would be if their milk rations would have to be reduced in order 
to get milk enough for Taxy, myself and my brothers. I con- 
cluded I would drink water the next day, so Taxy and the calves 
could have as much as usual. Taxy was tired, and his little red 
tongue lolled out. He had not taken care of his strength as he 
should, while attending to the stock business like men do. 

I remember Mother and I did the milking after supper when 
the flies had ceased to annoy and after the boys had started to 
town. We had separated the milk, Taxy and the calves had been 
satisfied. We had cleaned up the milk vessels and the separator 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 33 

and taken chairs out into the moonshine. Taxy had discovered 
the noise of a cricket in the weeds, and was trying hard to get me 
interested in the fun he was having ; and he was succeeding, too, 
when Mother said, in a tone sad and sacred, "Well Lina, what 
do you think about us having to live alone again next winter if 
the boys should have to go away to work again?" 

A lump of emotion, abstract though it was, came into my 
throat. I could not speak, but I remembered the last winter and 
how trying it was on me to help Mother do the chores and go a 
mile to school, and how the horses and cattle suffered with cold 
and hunger. I could see that Mother regretted having given 
utterance to her fears. She said, "Let us not think of it ; maybe 
it will rain in a few days' ' ; but it did not rain in time to save the 
crop. 

Now, Dash, what I am trying to impress upon you is the hard- 
ships the people all over that western country had to bear, and 
many of them had to sell their homes or mortgage them. This 
gave the speculators a chance to buy those lands at four dollars 
per acre. I judge you are taking advantage of the same kind 
of hardships which the pioneers of those localities, where you 
have been buying more land, have had to bear. 

Another niece of mine is going to teach school in your locality. 
She will be a stranger to the people there. I hope you will see her 
and show her the same gallantry you showed me when I taught. 
She is only eighteen, and I feel that she will interest you to the 
point of being a rival of mine. My observation has been that 
men generally shift around a good deal in love affairs. Her name 
is Vina Vintage. She is a brunette. 

I hope to hear from you soon. 

Your sincere friend, 

Lixa Goxa. 



IV. 
ABSENT TREATMENT. 

Dear Miss Gona : I feel just as informal as you when you 
wrote y out u Searching the Capital." I surely hope for an eternal 
friendship with you. I did hope for a chance to dwell on those 
topics, through a correspondence, in which the tenderest senti- 
ments lovers can have would be spread out on clean white paper 
in beautiful words. I tried to give you absent treatment by tele- 
pathy, but "wireless" did not seem to work; at any rate, the 
thoughts I tried to suggest in your first letter — or rather essay — 
to me did not show up. 

For a few days after you left, the ideal love light in your pretty 
eyes that moonlight night caused such a happiness that I really 
neglected my business. Your trend of thought, while altogether 
womanly for one of your age, is wanting in a sweetheart's dream. 

Why did you not describe the Governor's Mansion? — for I have 
an ambition to occupy it some day. 

Who is Ruby Kirk McLean? Did she ever lecture in Norton 
on woman's suffrage? 

I have no fight to make against prohibition, but I see plenty 
of evidence of the law not being enforced. The law was enacted 
long before I became a voter, and I was trained up to believe it 
was right, but since it has been agitated so much in the last cam- 
paign, I can see that it does interfere with the personal liberty 
which our constitution guarantees. 

I'm glad you like Topeka so well. I never expected you to be 
in love with my farms. I do not believe you are much in love 
with anything in its sentimental sense. The love you have springs 
from your goodness of heart and does not center on single indi- 

(34) 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 35 

viduals, especially not on any one man. What I mean is that you 
have never known the strong, enduring love of a sweetheart. 
You are good, in fact better than most people, but, as Dodd 
Gaston would express it, you are " lopsided." You are out of the 
ordinary. I like you as a friend. I loved you passionately when 
you were out here. I would have married you and considered it 
the most sensible thing I ever did in my life. You have said 
enough to convince me that you consider yourself above me 
morally, and I agree with you. If there is a heaven you will 
surely get there. 

You are not practical in political questions and you do not 
understand the ways of politicians. Regulating freight rates was 
an election scheme to get the offices; so the Democrats think. 
Maybe Arthur Capper, Tom McNeal, Dodd Gaston, William Allen 
White, Governor Stubbs, Victor Murdock and all the rest of the 
progressives, aggressives and insurgents, really intend to do some- 
thing about it ; but more than likely it is political buncombe. 
Anyhow, that is what Old Ed Howe thinks about it. 

Talk about regulating rents on farms. Here is where you are 
lopsided. You might as well talk about regulating sunshine. 
Lina, dear friend, do not let these wild theories get abroad; the 
insane accommodations are in Topeka. You do not seem to know 
that farms have all grades of fertility, and a farm with practical 
improvements, one which has had a good system of conservation 
(I am for Pinchot) practiced upon it, has twice the rental value 
that another adjoining farm which has been neglected. You 
mildly upbraided me for buying more land instead of improving 
what I already had. In this perhaps your ideas were not so bad. 
I felt a little guilty till I considered it thorough^, after which I 
convinced myself I had acted wisely. Some other fellow would 
have bought it, and buying it did not cramp me financially. I 
have enough means at hand to improve all my farms in this im- 
mediate locality. And I am going to build a modern house and a 



36 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

good barn on several of them and put in a private telephone sys- 
tem connecting all of them, so the renters will not be so isolated. 
I am going to do this as an experiment next year. And if it proves 
a success as an investment I'll know what to do with all my farms. 
Of course I can rent these improved farms for more than the others, 
for the renters on these improved farms can save their grain better 
and handle their stock more economically. One of my tenants 
said he would rather give one-half rent and have a good house and 
barn so he could take care of what he raised. 

You speak about farms being falsely capitalized. You might 
as well contend that a suit of clothes is falsely capitalized because 
it is worth more than the cloth from which it was made or because 
more clothes were in demand. Every bit of labor added, every 
improvement made and every increase in demand for land because 
of a scarcity of food products are the direct causes of increasing 
land values. I can cite you to a good many cases where wet, 
marshy land was of no use to a large population near by till capital 
under management of some skillful financier bought it, drained it 
and put it under a wise system of cultivation, making it worth 
hundreds of dollars per acre. Now in a case of this kind surely 
you will not claim the landlord is a grafter ; surely you will not 
claim it has been falsely capitalized; and its physical valuation 
now is rightly determined by the rent it is worth since it is put in 
competition with other lands. Land is noiv rented and taxed 
according to its physical value. The illustration I made on marsh 
land is also applicable to dry lands, where irrigation is applied in- 
stead of drainage. As to the dry lands of western Kansas, Texas, 
and Nebraska, a buyer puts up his money and runs a risk like he 
does when he gets married — maybe it's a success and maybe it 
isn't. It was so dry in some places out here last year that the 
whole crop would not pay the taxes ; and here is where the owner 
steps in and serves the State by paying the taxes. The State's 
rights, the welfare of the whole people, are superior to the 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 37 

individual rights, because the State upholds the individual in 
his rights. 

Of course that remembrance of your childhood was pathetic. 
It was one of the many things which made you the noble woman 
you are. However, I am not only convinced that it is my legal 
right, but it is also a moral duty to use both capital and manage- 
ment to make this country produce all it will. 

I like to see things move, and the faster they move within the 
bounds of safety the better I am pleased. I was referred to by 
the New Era, Hill City, Kansas, as going so fast when driving my 
auto in a circle that I could " reach out behind and give myself 
a chew of tobacco." 

I am trying to live a good life, but I do not believe I'll ever get 
so good as to not enjoy a good cigar ; nevertheless I am going to 
quit using tobacco in the presence of women who dislike it. I 
know I'll never make a model husband and a perfect man from 
your point of view. 

" Dualism" is a new ism to me. On first thought it occurred 
to me you meant marriage, but I soon perceived you had reference 
to some kind of higher life or soul knowledge, God within man, or 
something of the kind. I'm not interested in such. But I am 
interested in that niece of yours. We are quite well acquainted ; 
have taken several auto rides together ; told her about the name 
you gave my auto, but she did not seem to approve it, so I have 
dropped it. I'm inclined to want to please her. She is so young, 
more pliant and more responsive to my advances than you. She 
can blush and cry. I really believe you went to Topeka to get 
rid of me more than you went there to become a literatus ; and 
your communication, "Searching the Capital," informed me so 
skillfully, so respectfully and so completely that you still hold the 
highest regard I have as an intimate friend and confidant. It's 
awfully easy for me to love a pretty, young woman; now I've 
told you enough to give your imagination full sway in regard to 



38 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

my hopeful relations with Vina Vintage, one of the prettiest names 
I have ever known. 

Yours with highest regard, 

Dash Blank. 



RESISTING THE WORLDLY. 

Topeka, Kansas, November, 1910. 

Dear Mr. Blank : There was the usual recklessness in your 
Absent Treatment that I've always noticed in your talking. 
Your endeavor to compliment my eyes was a fair sample of a futile 
effort given by a worldly man to impress an old maid who had 
sense enough to read this Wireless Telepathy between the lines : 
"It will do her good and I won't miss it ; jt's cheap." Mr. Howe 
would call it " funny foolishness." 

If I had known you were ambitious to occupy the Governor's 
Mansion I surely would have told you where it was. It is about 
eight blocks west of the northwest corner of the Capitol grounds, 
on the south side of West Eighth Avenue. The ground occupied 
by the Mansion and outbuildings is about ten rods wide and 
twenty-five rods long; it's on the south side of the Avenue; it 
fronts to the east and north, and a row of elm trees is in the center 
of the Avenue directly north of the Mansion, and nowhere else on 
this Avenue are there any trees in the center of the street. It is 
a large brick building and the barn is west of it. I shall not try to 
tell you how it looks inside, for it's not likely you will ever occupy 
it. I hope your boyish vanity will be satisfied with this. When 
I passed the building today at noon the Governor was trying to 
pacify a dog which he had chained in the back yard. They say 
this dog has been awfully cross ever since the election. Maybe 
some of the political curs have been giving him absent treatment. 
Yesterday's Atchison Globe says Stubbs and Roosevelt have got 
the big-head. The Governor retorts in today's Daily Capital 
that his enemies help him more than his friends. They all seem 
to be giving him absent treatment. 

(39) 



40 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

Ruby Kirk McLean is just a nice young unmarried woman. 
She is not " lopsided," nor does she lecture. I notice you always 
take special notice whenever a woman's name is mentioned. In 
this respect you are a little " lopsided." 

I knew Dodd Gaston would suit you ; for this reason I sent you 
the Daily Capital. You men all have such funny musings. Ruth 
Cameron had the pleasure of seeing a little girl give a horse a 
lump of sugar, and Dodd was so jealous he suggested feeding 
"Ruthie" mush. 

Dash, you had better save your flattery for younger women. 
If I had married you the bright matrimonial prospects you now 
have would have failed to appea'r. I do not wonder that you wrote 
so cheerfully. 

Here in Topeka we have a whistle at the ice plant that sounds 
like what I imagine a wail of a wandering soul in Dante's inferno 
sounds. 

When I came to that part of your letter where you alluded to 
my sanity, I really felt insulted. You are so short-sighted you fail 
to exercise ordinary judgment. It is just as proper for the State 
to regulate incomes in one industry as it is in another. You know 
very well that there is a legal rate of interest established, and a 
penalty for usury. Now if it is just — and it is — to regulate freight 
rates, interest rates, salaries, and all incomes of those who work for 
county and State, why should not the rich land-owner be placed 
under the same regulations? 

You thought you made a point when you compared a well- 
improved farm to one which had been neglected. There would 
be an incentive for the owner of a poor farm to improve it if rents 
were regulated by law. Mr. McNeal, the Editor of the Mail and 
Breeze, has several times suggested graduated land taxes, making 
assessments on such a system as would have a tendency to destroy 
land monopoly. If the land is to be made to produce to its fullest 
capacity, the State must regulate rents in such a way that men 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 41 

will not buy land for any other purpose than to make it produce 
to its fullest capacity, in such a way that they will only purchase 
it to apply their labor and make homes. 

There is no kind of graft so destructive to the rising generation 
as these real-estate frauds. In all the big cities and in nearly 
all the small villages there are great big fat frauds, social drones, 
who never do a productive day's work, dealing in real estate, 
falsely capitalizing the farms, booming the country, getting land 
values so high that young men can get a chance to tend the land 
only through a rental system by which these drones absorb every- 
thing above a mere living. It is hoped that Governor Stubbs and 
Colonel Roosevelt are broad-gauged and level-headed enough to 
make an attack on this iniquitous land system while they are in 
the business of going after grafts. 

I can see through the flimsy scheme upon which you have de- 
cided to improve your farms. You are calculating to take half 
of all that is produced as rent. Your generosity in having your 
renters comfortably housed and well provided for with barns, etc., 
is all based on getting a larger return for increased investments. 

In comparing a falsely capitalized farm to a suit of clothes you 
have a very meager comprehension of the propositions. The 
land is a gift from God ; it did not cost any human effort to make 
it. The cloth from which a suit of clothes is made is a product of 
labor ; its value is based upon labor, and so is the suit of clothes. 
To the extent your farms are improved they are justly capitalized. 
Those of your farms which have no improvements in the way of 
buildings, even though your deeds show a consideration of ten 
dollars per acre — they are unjust holdings, just as much as 
" watered stocks" in railroad holdings are a false, unjust basis 
upon which to estimate freight rates ; so I contend if there is any 
justice whatever in demanding State regulation of railroad rates, 
there is an equal justice in demanding laws to regulate farm rents. 

You made a stronger comparison when you presented the wet 



42 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

marsh land. The capitalist's right in this marsh-land case should 
be estimated by the amount of dollars it took per acre to drain it ; 
all above this amount really belongs to the State, the whole people ; 
and the rent which the owner of such land should be allowed to 
collect should be reckoned at a six per cent, per annum interest 
on the drainage cost. 

You take pride in your automobile because you can afford the 
nicest one in that country. Your little buzz-wagon would not be 
noticed in Topeka — there are so many so much finer than yours. 
This auto craze is going to have bad effects on the people. Poor, 
puny, sickly women who ought to be exercising themselves by a 
good vigorous walk, go gliding through these smooth, clean avenues 
in their autos, looking like ghosts. The young women who work 
in the offices, stores, factories, and laundries, and who get out on 
the nice walks bordering these avenues and exercise themselves, 
are physically, mentally, morally and socially better qualified to 
become wives and mothers than the sickly women of the rich. 

From their writings it is hard for me to decide which of the 
many bright newspaper men in Kansas I like best. I think per- 
haps I would set my featherless cap for the editor of the Atchison 
Globe. He has the reputation of never going to sleep in church. 
Besides, he likes to work so well. He says it isn't a man's work 
that wears him out; it is "the ceaseless and unnecessary annoy- 
ances" that are heaped upon him by idle, impudent and impolite 
people. "If you aid in wearing out people unnecessarily, by your 
petty ways, you deserve to go to hell, where you will surely go if 
you don't reform." Still further, he is always talking about the 
women, which makes me think he is very fond of them, especially 
spins who let him entirely alone. 

Literature is a splendid study. Nothing makes a woman more 
satisfied with herself than to have a fondness for the thoughts of 
men who are idolized by thousands of readers. Men who do not 
parade themselves from shore to shore and who stick to some use- 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 43 

ful vocation are the winners in this life as well as in eternity. 
They are the ones who are contented and happy. 

So you have the acquaintance of another girl whom you hope 
to honor with your love and affections along with your wine and 
tobacco. My opinion is your campaign will be a failure unless you 
change your habits. A man who hasn't enough regard for woman- 
hood to leave wine and tobacco alone is not the kind of a man to 
make old age pleasant. Nothing is more disgusting than an old 
man with his mouth so full of tobacco that he can hardly talk, 
whose will-power and sense of decency have left him, and whose 
example is such as to make children and grandchildren ashamed 
of him — nothing, I say, is more disgusting, except it be an old 
woman who has become as depraved. When woman's suffrage 
comes it will be in order to prohibit the sale and manufacture of 
tobacco. 

This great country should purify itself from center to shore. 
Kansas is the heart of the nation. We must commence being 
good at heart ; set the surrounding States a good example. 

Here in Topeka there is no way more effectual in separating 
yourself from your money and getting nothing in return than going 
to the Grand. I've attended several matinees ; and to see the 
fine ladies with their gold opera-glasses scrutinizing each other's 
head dresses and wearing apparel between the acts is enough to 
occupy a whole chapter in describing frivolities. The stage may 
be a civilizer ; if so, it hasn't done much yet- 
Some bright writer has said, "It is better to be good than to 
be great. " You have a chance to be good; you never can be 
great enough to be good until you are good enough to be great. 
Because it takes a wicked man to be great without being good. 
You are not wicked — you are just careless and indifferent. 

Your friend, 

Lin a. 



VI. 

A RIVAL, VINA VINTAGE. 

Paradise, Kansas, December, 1910. 
Miss Lina Gona, Topeka, Kansas: 

My Dear Lonely Aunt — My intense joy tonight is giving 
me sorrow. I never was happier, yet I am sad. This may seem 
incongruous to you if you have never been deeply in love. I do 
not know what to do. I am afraid to trust my own reason and 
conscience. My judgment refuses to give a decision. You know 
Dash Blank better than I do. Please, dear aunt, tell me all 
you know about him. I am afraid I am insanely in love with him. 
He has been gallant and attentive to me for some time, several 
weeks. Once he was unduly familiar with me. We had taken 
a long ride in his "auto" and stopped in a secluded place near a 
well on one of his large farms, to get a drink of water. We had 
to walk quite a little distance around a steep bluff to get to the 
well. I asked him if any wild flowers grew in this secluded place 
in summer. 

"None like the one I have now," he said as he placed his 
arm around me and kissed me. 

I was so shocked, angry and insulted that I lost control of 
myself and commenced crying; he refused to go any farther, 
turned around and started back toward the auto. He asked me 
if he should bring me a cup of water, as he started on toward 
the well. I replied, "No, sir!" He was at the well a few min- 
utes, and seemed to be fixing the windmill ; anyhow, climbed the 
tower. He returned presently with a cup of water and said, 
"Here, little girl, take a cool drink of water. I did not mean to 

(44) 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 45 

offend you. I would not harm you for all the money there is in 
Kansas." 

While I was drinking he took my hand in his and pressed it 
gently and said, "You are more to me than any young woman on 
earth." 

I said, "How about older women?" 

He looked me straight in the eye till he saw I was not going 
to be outdone looking, then answered, after meditating a few mo- 
ments, while lighting a cigar, "They are nice, too, but I wouldn't 
marry one of them." 

"Why?" I asked. 

"Got the best reason in the world," and he smiled as serenely 
as the most satisfied victor in the world. 

He was as good-natured, kind and sociable as could be ; talked 
with the utmost freedom as we glided over the prairie, and he 
seemed to be enjoying my company more than the ride, or the 
cigar either, for he threw it away before it was half smoked. 

We had not said anything for a few moments, when he re- 
marked, "Conventionalism is a great barrier between me and 
the women, especially the young women." 

I did not like to express myself, and felt confused, and he 
seemed to know it, and took delight in saying, "I've tested a good 
many kinds of vintage, and you are at the top of the list." 

I was plagued, and refused to talk. This strong, handsome 
man has me under his magnetic power, and I am both glad and sad. 

If I did not know that you and he have been intimate, I never 
would have told you my thoughts. I am afraid he acts with all 
the girls with whom he goes as he does with me. It seems if he 
were in earnest he would not be so jolly. To be in love with a 
view to marriage is so serious with me, and he regards it so lightly. 

I am in no condition to write tonight, for my thoughts are all 
about my happy sadness. 

Your loving niece, 

Vina Vintage. 



VII. 

LESS LOVE— MORE LIGHT. 

Topeka, Kansas, December, 1910. 

Dear Lovesick Vina : Your case is much the same that 
nearly every girl has to contend with. It is Dash's nature to act 
just like that, and I think he is just as much in earnest with you 
as he ever is with any girl. I think you had better come to Topeka 
during vacation, and deliberate. 

There is nothing very bad about Dash, neither is there anything 
so very good. Great wealth has ruined more young men than 
ever poverty did. Dash has business capacity and he is in- 
dustrious and ambitious. Really, the worst thing I know about 
him is being so addicted to wine and tobacco. These habits, I 
detest. When men are young and have pride enough to keep 
themselves clean, the evil effects are not so visible as when they 
get old and become careless. No doubt you have seen old men 
who were repulsive to a degree almost unbearable. 

I am not so lonely as you may imagine. I like solitude better 
than the association of the average person. When gladness brings 
sadness, when pleasure brings pain, and when misery brings mad- 
ness, you are in a dangerous domain. Then is when you need the 
philosophy of writers like Mabel Collins. She says: "We are 
all acquainted with that stern thing called misery, which pursues 
a man and strangely enough as it seems at first, pursues him with 
no vague or uncertain method, but with a positive and unbroken 
pertinacity. Its presence is not absolutely continuous, else man 
must cease to live, but its pertinacity is without any break. 
There is always the shadowy form of despair standing behind man, 

(46) 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 47 

ready to touch him with its terrible finger if for too long he finds 
himself content. 

"What has given this ghastly shape the right to haunt us from 
the hour we are born until the hour we die? What has given it 
the right to stand always at our door, keeping that door ajar with 
its impalpable, yet plainly horrible hand, ready to enter the 
moment it sees fit? The greatest philosopher who ever lived 
succumbs before it at last, and he only is a philosopher in any sane 
sense who recognizes the fact that it is irresistible, and knows that 
that like all other men, he must suffer soon or late. It is part of 
the heritage of men, this pain and distress, and he who determines 
that nothing shall make him suffer, does but cloak himself in a 
profound, chilly selfishness. This cloak may protect him from 
pain — it will also separate him from pleasure." 

You cannot enter the married state without taking the risk of 
much pain and suffering, no matter how good your affianced may 
be, and to resolve never to enter that state deprives you of some 
of the sweetest joys of life. 

In the scattered fragments of thought given to us by the 
spiritual life of Mabel Collins, we learn: "If peace is to be found 
on earth or any joy in life, it cannot be by closing up the gates of 
feeling, which admit us to the loftiest and most vivid part of our 
existence. Sensation, as we obtain it through the physical body, 
affords us all that induces us to live in this shape." 

The pleasant sensations caused by Dash taking your hand in 
his and pressing it gently while he uttered pleasant words, were 
divine; they are not to be ignored in making any final decision 
as to your course with Mr. Blank. He and Governor Stubbs 
have the homeliest names in Kansas, but you cannot afford to 
place anything against him on account of his name. Dash writes 
me that he has an ambition to occupy the Governor's mansion. 
So much of his letters to me is half-joke and whole-earnest. He 
could be a wonderful man if he would. He may turn out to be 



48 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

like an old man who commenced his business career with a yoke of 
oxen, in Atchison county, Kansas, fifty years ago. He had the 
faculty of "making money" — as getting hold of worldly goods is 
expressed. He soon acquired a farm in northeastern Kansas. 
He denied himself the pleasures of wife and home to get another 
farm, then another farm, then another farm. By this time he had 
become abominably anxious for more farms. As age came on he 
became socially deformed and unattractive to young women. His 
conquest for farms absorbed his being. He kept on buying farms 
farther west, till now he owns farms through the two northern tiers 
of counties in Kansas, and yet he is not satisfied. Instead of 
marrying some good woman and rearing a family, he has spent 
his life laying plans to get one-third or more of all that can be pro- 
duced on forty farms. He realizes that there never was a time 
in the history of this country when chances so completely protected 
by law would allow him to get an everlasting claim on the children 
raised on forty farms. One would think if getting farms would 
make him happy he ought to have contentment. I saw him not 
long ago, and what a dejected reality! This wizened personifica- 
tion of misery ! But is he to blame? The laws of our country en- 
couraged him in the direction he went. 

If Dash does not get married he is apt to operate along the 
same line, only that he may go farther, for he has so much to start 
with. If he were to get married to a woman who had proper con- 
trol over him — by this I mean a woman who could appeal to his 
spiritual nature, his conscience — a great reformation might be 
given him. Every man has his sympathies developed more by 
marriage and what follows, parentage, than anything else. Dash 
is naturally good, but he has grown careless because of being too 
much engrossed with his business, and he has become sensuous 
and wordly because of his independence. I am not the one who 
would feel like marrying him to reform him. He is honest as he 
sees it in everything he does. I cannot advise you, for I have 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 49 

found myself incapable of always judging right in my own af- 
fairs. 

No doubt he has made similar advances toward many other 
women, and I assure you from my own experiences he was easy 
to learn his distance, and I think he regards me highly as a friend. 

There are so many things in the cities for single women to do 
to make them entirely independent from a money point of view, 
but she can never be independent entirely, from a social point of 
view, neither can he be, for nature made them for each other. 

At your age, despondency is so hard to avoid, and I am will- 
ing to do all I can for you. Dash is confidential with me, and I 
shall not misuse either of you because of this. In his last letter 
he says you are more pliant than I am, more susceptible to his 
advances. 

"She can blush and cry," is one of his assertions. 

You can develop a power over him by a certain mode of action. 
It would be well for you to know something of the suffering of 
those who have made mistakes. Mabel Collins has left more 
consolation: "We live because it is pleasant to have the sensa- 
tion of pain. It is sensation we desire, else we would with one 
accord try the consolation of oblivion, and the human race would 
become extinct. If this is the case with the physical life it is 
evidently the case with the emotions, the imaginations, the sensi- 
bilities, all those fine and delicate formations which, with the 
marvelous recording mechanism of the brain, make up the inner 
or subtle being ; sensation is that which makes their pleasures ; 
an infinite series of sensations is life to them. Destroy the sensa- 
tion which makes them wish to persevere in the experiment of 
living, and there is nothing left. Therefore, the man who at- 
tempts to obliterate the sense of pain, and who proposes to main- 
tain equal state whether he is pleased or hurt, strikes at the very 
root of life, and destroys the object of his own existence. And 
this must apply, so far as our present reasoning or intuitive powers 



50 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

can show us, to every state, even that of the Oriental's longed- 
for Nirvana. This condition can only be one more subtle and 
more exquisite in sensation if it is a state at all, and not annihi- 
lation, and according to the experience of life from which we are 
at present able to judge, increased subtility of sensation means 
increased vividness — as for instance, a man of sensibility and 
imagination feels more in consequence of the unfaithfulness or 
faithfulness of a friend, than can a man of even the grossest 
physical nature feel through the medium of the senses. Thus, 
it is clear that the philosopher who refuses to feel, leaves himself 
no place to retreat to, not even the distant and unattainable 
Nirvanic goal. He can only deny himself his heritage of life, 
which is in other words the right of sensation. If he chooses to 
sacrifice that which makes him man, he must be content with 
mere idleness of consciousness, a condition compared to which 
the oyster's is a life of excitement. 

"But no man is able to accomplish such a feat. The fact of 
his continued existence proves plainly that he still desires sensa- 
tion, and desires it in such a positive and active form that the 
desire must be gratified in physical life. It would seem more 
practical not to deceive one's self by the sham of stoicism, not 
to attempt renunciation of that with which nothing would induce 
to part. Would it not be a bolder policy, a more promising mode 
of solving the great enigma of existence, to grasp it, to take hold 
firmly and to demand of it the mystery of life? If men will but 
pause to consider what lessons they have learned from pleasure 
and pain, much might be guessed of that strange thing which 
causes these effects. But men are prone to turn away hastily 
from self-study, or from any close analysis of human nature. 
Yet there must be a science of human life as intelligible as any 
of the methods of schools. The science is unknown," it is true, 
and its existence is merely guessed, merely hinted at^by one or 
two of our most advanced thinkers. The development of a 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 51 

science is only the discovery of what is already in existence, and 
chemistry is as magical and incredible now to the plowman as the 
science of life is to the man of ordinary perceptions. Yet there 
may be and there must be a seer who perceives the growth of the 
new knowledge as the eager dabblers in the experiments of the 
laboratory saw the system of knowledge now attained evolving 
itself out of nature for man's use and benefit." L. G. 



VII. 
LOOKING AT THE HIGHER LIFE. 

November 21, 1910. 
Miss Lina Gona, Topeka, Kansas: 

Dearest Friend : I want to be perfectly frank with you, and 
in being so it is going to be exceedingly hard to keep your friend- 
ship. The delicacy and fineness of your nature and the subtlety 
of your conclusions are doubly hard for me to deal with, because 
I act altogether from a practical or worldly point of view, while 
you act and deduct from an ideal point of view. I think you are 
largely imaginary — spiritual you would probably call it. 

I shall not attempt to compliment your beauty any more. 
I shall leave the ineffable to those spiritually inclined. It is 
in keeping with my fancy to believe you to be honest in your 
pet reformations. But the successful men of this age will list 
you with Tolstoi, who I noticed by yesterday's Daily Capital has 
passed into eternity. For many years he bordered on insanity, 
and if his plans had not been modified by his family's interfer- 
ence he would have left his children in poverty. He may have 
enjoyed the kind of life he lived, but I think Mr. Roosevelt ex- 
celled him two to one in the enjoyment of life, up to date. Maybe 
Roosevelt will not die as peacefully and calmly as did Tolstoi, 
for he is acknowledged to be the most worldly man of this age, 
and I endorse his career. He believes in living according to Roose- 
velt and does not run after any fads and new-fangled theories. 
" Every dog has his day, but the nights belong to the cats." Now 
do not take this as an insinuation toward anything you may hold 
to in your ideas of reformation. 

(52) 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 53 

I read the Weekly Globe because it is such a critic, but the 
effort it makes to twit Stubbs on his election majority shows how 
trivial the comments of able men often are. Stubbs is a states- 
man ; of course Howe is too old-fashioned to see it. 

There is much of the regulation business as applied to State 
laws, which is a nuisance. Take, for instance, the Inheritance 
Tax law : it has stirred up a lot of strife and animosity. If the 
State has to have more funds why can it not levy on something 
besides what is left to the widows and orphans by fathers who 
have spent their lives trying to provide for their posterity? Yes- 
terday's Daily Capital contained information from the State 
Treasurer showing that the State did not need the funds coming 
from this source. 

I am not going to say anything against regulating freight rates, 
for the railroads have become more powerful than the courts. 
Regulating interest rates does not amount to anything, especially 
on large loans. 

When we loan money out here to farmers we charge 6 per cent, 
per annum. Then we reserve 2 per cent, out of the amount ap- 
plied for as commission for making the loan. To illustrate : A 
farmer applies for $1,000, and gives his note for $1,000 and annual 
interest notes $60 each, for five years, amounting to $300. Then 
we take 2 per cent, per annum for five years, amounting to $100, 
from the $1,000, and give, him $900. You see we get commission 
on our own money. There is no law regulating commissions. 

As a general thing women know so little about finance, I 
thought I would make this plain. I do not know if Mr. Stubbs 
makes use of this commission dodge at his bank ; anyhow I haven't 
noticed any proposed legislation to regulate commissions. 

There are those like yourself who would not want the State to 
stop at regulating farm rents, but would want to regulate all 
kinds of wages, regulate what we drink, regulate what we chew 
and don't swallow, regulate what we smoke, regulate the time to 



54 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

retire at night, regulate the time to get up in the morning, regulate 
the time to go to church, and finally regulate the time to die. 

Of course I know some of the things are already regulated by 
custom, but there are cranks who would like to see it all done by 
law. Then there are politicians who get so patriotic they would 
like to see it all done so there would be more commissions of 
various kinds, and a lot more inspectors to munch at the public 
pie-counter. 

I have not said just exactly what I wanted to say, nor have 
I used as nice language as I would like to have done. If I could 
only write like old Ed Howe, I'd be the happiest man on earth ; 
provided, however, in the meantime, if I were not regulated too 
much. 

My dear good friend, I'm afraid you'll be reading between the 
lines again ; so I may as well tell you I took a drink of wine and a 
good cigar before I could get my muse to work at all. The cigar 
has gone out ; so I'll take a chew to regulate my muse some more. 

Now we will look at that farm rent business some. Just think 
of the nice old people in Topeka and all the other cities, grand- 
fathers and grandmothers who are peacefully and happily enjoy- 
ing their old age by living off the rent from farms they own, farms 
which they worked so hard in prime of life while rearing their 
families ; — no one but the thoughtless and heartless would think of 
disturbing this old-age serenity. It seems to me you are studying 
mischief more than you are literature. You'll never make a Mary 
Ellen. You are more apt to make a Helen Willmans, judging from 
the finishing touch you gave to the letter you wrote to Vina last 
week. She lost it on the road to school and there was no envelope 
with it and the first part was missing. I persuaded myself — 
which wasn't hard to do — that she lost it on purpose for me to 
find. If you are not wholly a woman, you are partly a freak. I 
suppose that was something very nice, very exalted, you got 
through the mystic zeal of Mabel Collins ; it must have been some- 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 55 

thing very elevating, but I must admit I am too stupid to compre- 
hend it. Herbert N. Casson wrote a little book entitled "The 
Crime of Credulity." You ought to get it and read it carefully. 
He said in substance : Those who claimed to be empowered by 
getting in touch with the mystic Higher Life, with a creed where 
absolute purity, justice and truth prevail, — they will in a few 
years fall short of common everyday decency. They attempt 
what is impossible, and the reaction brings them below medi- 
ocrity ; and they always terminate in some kind of a disgraceful 
business enterprise. Every divine philosophy, every cooperative 
commonwealth, has ended in a lawsuit, or a disgraceful squabble 
over property. 

Theosophy, spiritualism, aesthetic cults, or whatever name you 
may apply to mysticism, never has and never will terminate in a 
Universal Brotherhood. Some of these mild forms of social and 
spiritual insanity have had to be governed by common or consti- 
tutional law, or many followers of such would go entirely crazy. 
A large class of idle women kept like dolls contribute to these 
crazes. There was Helen Blavatsky, who claimed to be "a mes- 
senger of the adepts" thirty-five years ago, attracted Annie 
Besant, Olcott and others, to promote the study and explain the 
psychical phenomena. They were going to establish Universal 
Brotherhood, making no distinctions. This all ended in a squabble 
similar to the Booth, the Dewey, and the Eddy disgraces. The 
courts of the constitutional law had to settle all these "divine 
inceptions." 

You had better let the cults and the isms alone ; pay more 
attention to prohibition, woman suffrage, or matrimony. 

Something tangible suits me a good deal better than the high- 
souled abstractions, but, worldly though I am, I'm not altogether 
satisfied with myself, lately. I find wine and tobacco have al- 
most got to be a necessity with me, and I have concluded to quit 
them both for one month and study the effects. Vina asked me to 



56 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

do it just as an experiment. I want to marry a good woman, and 
I do not believe the best type of woman is going to have me unless 
I do this, and I am almost convinced that these habits are in- 
jurious. Everybody seems to want to have some kind of a creed, 
religion or ism to live by, and I got interested a while ago in what 
the writer calls Intellectualism. I think I am going to like this ; 
so I'll have to "crawfish" a little, as we boys at school used to call 
it, when we found we had said something we could not consistently 
defend. 

There is something in mental enjoyment, for I am getting- 
more and more interested in this correspondence. I was reared 
in the Christian Church, as you know, and never gave religion 
much thought, but this man Casson in his book, " Crime of 
Credulity," has made me an agnostic, or he rather convinced me 
that I was already one and did not know it. I have heard preach- 
ers say an agnostic is a great burden on society. I'm going to 
get books and study some on this subject and see wherein the 
burden lies. Every man ought to do something in the world 
of thought. Casson says : "The greater the division of labor, the 
less brains the individual worker requires to earn a living. It is 
possible for us to have cities and factories that will be the wonder 
of the world, and yet have sixty per cent of our citizens as super- 
stitious as Malays." He seems to think there is no system of 
government within the knowledge of man that will remain perma- 
nent while superstition is prevalent, and insists on every thought- 
ful man leaving a record of his individuality in book form, if 
possible. This is a wonderful conclusion, in which he thinks 
science is going to be the server of a man's morals instead of 
religion. Science is to explain everything known to morality 
in regulation style, so that the whole human family will, step by 
step, solve everything into a harmonious civil government. All 
I ever said to you about Telepathy was purely speculative; if 
there is anything in it I don't know it. I do not make any pre- 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 57 

tense of a perfectly accurate knowledge on anything except the 
fundamental rules of arithmetic and the knowledge that I am 
Dash Blank, one of the dogs who is having his day. To me 
women are most mysterious in their tenacity in holding on to the 
churches and orthodox religion. 

Mr. Casson says, on page 78 : " Today all who have studied 
the history of human opinions have no faith in conclusions that 
are based upon intuitions. Consciousness is like the diction- 
ary, — it gives you whatever you search for. Philosophies and 
religion based on intuition have existed in the most barbarous 
times, without being felt as a progressive or a refining influence. 
There is now little or no doubt that intuitions are simply in- 
herited or acquired mental tendencies. A man may have an in- 
tuition that makes him murder or steal." 

Many things I have said to you were " half -joke and whole- 
earnest," but the older I get the more serious I am ; and I now 
know there are men who have good character and high aims who 
are amply paid for their goodness in the happiness they enjoy. 

Men of all ages have doubted their conclusions when based 
entirely on their reason; then is when they give up reason and 
resort to intuition and prayer ; and some of the worst crimes of 
every age were excused by those who committed them. The 
murderers of our martyred Presidents are cases in proof. 

Again, some writers are not sure of their reason and adopt 
fictitious names to argue the questions in doubt ; or else they do 
it to avoid publicity. From this has sprung many of the meri- 
torious books of fiction. The strongest minds if allowed to dwell 
too long on complicated questions will become unreliable. 

I am determined to get married, and if I can't marry the girl 
I want I am going to marry some one of the many who want me. 
I am in no way mixed up with that belief which holds that mar- 
riages are arranged by a Higher Life ; if I were I might have 
had several divine-affinity experiences. 



58 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

I have destroyed that letter written by the dear little girl 
who would have been my wife if she had lived. I want a home 
with the domestic influences which will give me contentment. 
I do not know what the lowest degradation of society is like. 
If it is anything like what Roosevelt describes in Civic Helpful- 
ness, I never want to see it. He says: "The young enthusiast, 
who for the first time brought into contact with the terrible 
suffering and stunting degradation which are so evident in many 
parts of our great cities, is apt to become so appalled as to lose 
his head. If there is a twist in his mental or moral make-up, he 
will never regain his poise ; but if he is sound and healthy he will 
soon realize that things being bad affords no justification for mak- 
ing them worse, and that the only safe rule is for each man to 
strive to do his duty in a spirit of sanity and wholesome common- 
sense. No one of us can make the world move on very far, but 
it moves only when each one of a very large number does his 
duty." 

Having no religious creed to guide me, I've concluded I ought 
to search my reason for a daily guide in doing good, because it 
will be easier to live by a lenient rule founded on my own judg- 
ment than to try to follow the precept of the Bible. So here is 
my guide to good citizenship and a happy old age : Health is 
first; business, second; society, third; and pleasure all the 
time. 

To do only those things which are healthful will be a very easy 
matter while I am in the prime of life, but as I grow old there will 
have to be a good many alterations in my daily conduct. These 
alterations will be based on the experience I get as I advance in 
years. My judgment based on my reason and experience will 
preclude all medicine advertisements and all complicated advice 
given by doctors and health officers, provided I am not overcome 
by some accident, in which case, I shall turn myself over to a 
practitioner. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 59 

In matters of business I'll be guided by my legal rights as 
I understand them and shall not consult any lawyer unless my 
ignorance leads me into trouble ; — I'm not intoxicated. I've just 
got my muse in motion for the especial benefit of one who is going 
to learn so much by thought taken from the written or printed 
page. 

Next is society. A matured man, without a wife, is an anom- 
aly ; so is a matured woman without a husband. Society rules, 
based so largely on custom taken from tradition and religion, are 
the direct cause of most old bachelors and most old maids ; and 
a man's reason, experience and judgment are a good deal harder 
to apply on these rules and customs than they are on health and 
business topics. When a man is satisfied that a woman is well 
qualified from a physical point of view to be his wife, the ques- 
tion of her religious qualifications comes in the way and makes 
such a barrier that he gets, or rather she gets discouraged, be- 
cause he cannot indorse what preachers and priests call divine 
marriages based on a foolish ceremony ; so I have concluded that 
the woman who marries me will go with me to the Probate Judge 
and get married according to sensible civil law. Vina has prom- 
ised to marry me provided we can make it sacred by a minister's 
ceremony. 

Now about pleasure ; I am going to get it wherever and when- 
ever I can, being careful not to injure others in any way in pur- 
suing it, always trying to produce as much pleasure for others as 
I get myself. Also, I intend to take pleasure in relieving others 
from their pain and sorrow. 

In answering this you will as usual read a great deal be- 
tween the lines by giving intuitions a chance to help you. 

Dash Blank. 



VIII, 
CONFLICTING OPINIONS OVER LAWS. 

. Topeka, Kansas, Nov. 24, 1910. 

Mr. Blank: Some antiquated philosopher said, "No man 
can help being what he is," and a man who operates against the 
rules and customs of society and has no conscientious scruples 
to check him may be excusable before God. However, society 
cannot afford to let him have full sway and the rights and opin- 
ions of all honest people must have protection by law. There 
was evidence in your letter that there is a divine spark in your 
mind closely related to your reason. It is worth my while to 
light this transient spark into a glow of the Higher Life. In doing 
this I shall have to excuse your uncouth manners. Why do you 
write it "Old Ed Howe"? There is always a delightful sensa- 
tion both to the receiver and giver of good manners. 

I hope you are a " diamond in the rough," and will have be- 
come polished before you get into the Governor's Mansion. 
Quite as much appeared to me "between the lines" as was con- 
tained in them. In your looking at the Higher Life, you do not 
seem to have seen much of it. Surely you must have quit look- 
ing at it before you aroused your "muse." When a man has to 
resort to drugs or wine to start circulation of thought, he has been 
abusing himself. Mr. Roosevelt does not always conduct him- 
self according to his highest aims. That rough expression you 
quoted was very unbecoming. He knew men generally appre- 
ciated that kind of hilarity. 

I agree with you in this, that Mr. Howe is the ablest critic, 
as well as the best paragrapher in Kansas, and Dodd Gaston is the 
most sarcastic one. 

(60) 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 61 

Your comments on the Inheritance Tax Law show very plainly 
that you know but very little about it. It taxes nothing under 
$5000, and $5000 used with economy is enough to put a family 
in possession of all the comforts of life. Three-fourths of the in- 
heritances of Kansas are not touched at all by its assessments. 
Whatever inefficiency there is about it can be very easily redressed. 
It is just as good a law as the Prohibition law, and a good deal 
more easily enforced. The State Treasurer never said the State 
did not need the funds accruing from this law; he merely inti- 
mated that we could get along without them. Widows and help- 
less orphans will seldom come under the Inheritance Tax Laws; 
it is more often rich widows and grown children, well-to-do, who 
have to bear these assessments. 

The reason you have nothing to say against State regulation 
of freight and passenger rates is because you would be a bene- 
ficiary, whereas in the State regulation of land rents you would 
have to let loose of wealth which you got unfairly. Nowhere else 
in your letter did there appear such glaring selfishness as in this 
regulation argument; and the illustration you gave in regard 
to interest, so that we women could understand, was another 
selfish, egotistical act. Why did you not refer to Mrs. Lease with 
due respect? Such references are a reflection on your youthful 
training as well as matured impoliteness. 

The commission you take when you loan money is nothing 
more nor less than a burdensome, dishonest graft imposed on the 
borrower. And there ought to be a law to put every man who 
gets $100 in any such way, in the penitentiary. To think you 
would be so thoughtless, or drunk — its hard to tell which — as to 
brag about it, is enough to make one discouraged. The redeem- 
ing part about you is that you seem to be honest. You scarcely 
could have said anything more trivial than your self-made rules 
for which you were going to displace the Decalogue. I could 
easily infer this displacement between the lines. I never ex- 



62 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

pected you to say anything quite so insignificant, and I can ac- 
count for it in no other way than you were imbibing too freely. 
It was unworthy of you. You are going to be one of the most 
miserable of men before many years if you do not quit your 
vicious habits. 

I would rather see Vina Vintage in her grave than see her 
married to you with your present disregard for those ennobling 
influences which you are seemingly going to denounce. 

Those who have been brought up under the influences of the 
churches, many of whom seldom reason for themselves about 
morals, and who truly believe in the moral guidance of the 
churches, — these would be a sad menace to society indeed if 
they should deny the teachings of the Bible, and adopt your little, 
insignificant, quadruple rule of three to guide them to happiness 
and usefulness on this earth, to say nothing of the Higher Life 
happiness which is to be enjoyed here. 

If you were not intoxicated, you must have been inebriated, 
or else your sanity is in danger. 

Because you own land mortgages and bank stock, does not 
make you one particle better than the farm hand who wears 
overalls and works at hard labor ten hours per day. It is evi- 
dent from the way you write that you would not raise your hand 
or voice against that 2 per cent commission outrage practiced 
by the money-loaners all over the State. You have not shaken 
my convictions in the least; and I still maintain that if rail- 
roads are to be confined to a 6 per cent profit on their actual or 
physical wealth, farmers, bankers, merchants and all other in- 
dustries should get the same treatment. 

You speak deprecatingly about inspectors "munching at the 
pie-counters,' ' not realizing that discounting 2 per cent commis- 
sion from the face of a loan and charging exorbitant rent on land 
are much more dishonest and unjust ways of getting money. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 63 

No wonder you felt just like you had not said just what you 
wanted to say. 

That heart-rending sadness you have for the retired farmers, 
grandfathers and grandmothers, who would have the tranquillity 
of old age disturbed by a law to regulate land rents, is certainly 
the limit of worldly grief, for these same retired farmers already 
have bank accounts under the protection of a guarantee-deposit 
law ; and this very day this law was enforced at Abilene and the 
depositors were paid in full with certificates good anywhere in the 
State. This Guarantee-Deposit law together with the U. S. 
Postal Banking Law, is all that is needed for old age tranquillity. 
These retired farmers whose old age so grieved your tender emo- 
tions are living in modern homes of their own, and glide through 
these well-kept avenues in their fine automobiles more inde- 
pendent than the landlords of the medieval ages, and if you had 
even good horse sense you would sell part of your land, and buy 
one of these modern homes and make something out of yourself. 
You might get into intellectual work like Mr. Howe, whom you 
desire to be like. In this ambition you are all right, and I would 
like to see you pursue it. Get out of that disgraceful land- 
monopolizing, money-making rut and do something useful, some- 
thing morally elevating. 

You made a very strong quotation from Mr. Casson's work, 
but all churches and all creeds have the same privileges in this 
country, and it is no business of yours, mine, or Mr. Casson's, 
what they teach so long as the members and followers are good 
citizens. 

Something much more important, something that has a bear- 
ing on the welfare of the rising generation, occurred yesterday 
here in Topeka : A ranch containing six sections of land in Wa- 
baunsee county was sold for $150,000. The man who sold this 
land bought it for from two to ten dollars per acre, and sold it for 
$23 per acre, making $100,000, for which he gave society nothing. 



64 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

The land laid idle or was leased out to cattle-men while the owner 
lived here in Topeka and population moved west. No effort 
on the part of the owner made the land worth any more today 
than it was worth twenty years ago. But increase of population 
and the improvement of the country in general around this land 
made this increase of $100,000 ; but the idler here in Topeka gets 
the $100,000, and the rising generation must indirectly pay it, 
even though the new owners make settlement in full, for the in- 
crease in price of products on this land is the factor which ulti- 
mately pays this $100,000 monopoly. 

Now then, our conscientious governor, Mr. Stubbs, is just 
home from San Antonio, Texas, where he has been in attendance 
at the Trans-Mississippi Congress, in which there were resolutions 
passed with a view to preventing railroads from unduly drawing 
on the means of the people in freight charges ; all this, mind you, 
is being done while an idle citizen in his own town completes a 
$100,000 land monopoly deal. If it is proper for a State to legis- 
late against a railroad taking advantage of the people, why is it 
not the right thing to do to legislate against these $100,000 land- 
monopoly deals? 

So you are going to get married, and if you cannot gefc the girl 
you want, you are going to take one of the "many" who want 
you. Here is more egotism. Here is one ism, Dash, that is 
going to do you more harm than all the other isms can do you 
good, I am afraid. Yo seem to be so wrapped up in your worldly 
self that you hinder self -improvement. You have fine ability, 
but many a bright young fellow has let the ego take such a firm 
hold on him that he could not advance; then he becomes the 
object of the severest ridicule of his acquaintances. The most 
potent forces are hidden forces which are in constant operation 
throughout the universe; and man can only connect himself 
with these forces by thought ; so think more and talk and write 
less; then you may gain some from the hidden forces. I also 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 65 

doubt the efficiency of prayer in its literal sense as is exemplified 
by preachers and others by word of mouth, but to exercise your 
brain in deep earnest consideration makes you capable and power- 
ful in influencing others. The pagans talked to trees, rocks, and 
wooden gods, and found they became apt in the expression of their 
thoughts ; they believed they got this loquacity from their wooden 
gods. 

Those who pray for power and strength of mind get their 
prayers answered in the same way. You can never win the girl 
you want by writing or talking to me about her. The thing for 
you to do in this matrimonial campaign is to take yourself into 
consideration with your mental and moral powers, analyze your 
weaknesses and bad habits, get in touch with the higher life, for 
a higher civilization is now calling for a new adjustment and man- 
agement of all our industries. Those benevolently inclined are 
determined that every honest worker can, must and shall be pro- 
vided with a new social system under which he will furnish his 
family with all the comforts of life without having to work so 
many hours per day as he now does. To do this, these SI 00, 000 
land-grafters must reimburse society by a graduated system of 
taxation which will compel these grafters to return a part of their 
ill-gotten gains to the State. 

In Social Evolution, by Benjamin Kidd, page 14: "We are 
beginning to hear from many quarters that the social question is 
at the bottom a religious question, and that to its solution it be- 
hooves the churches in the interest of society to address them- 
selves." Creeds which stand in the way of a better social system 
will go out of existence because of non-support. The higher life 
can be attained only when the physical condition of mankind is 
kept at a high moral standard. 

There is evidence coming now from the writers in every civil- 
ized country, showing that State control of all industries is going 
to be extended until speculators in land will have to confine them- 



66 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

selves to very small areas. This can be done through graduated 
tax laws so efficiently that men will not buy land to hold out of 
use ; so efficiently that men will buy it only to make it produce to 
its fullest capacity ; so efficiently that it will come down in price 
to its first cost or physical valuation ; and so efficiently that prices 
of farm products will be cheapened so that laborers in all the in- 
dustries will not have to use so much of their earnings to buy good 
food supplies. 

The owners of large tracts of land are plundering the people 
more than the railroads are, or ever did. If a farmer is allowed to 
increase his rent, why not increase freight rates? 

To meet the Governor on the street and shake his hand is to 
be convinced of his integrity. A close observer can tell a good 
man from a bad one by his address and walk. There is a firmness 
in his speech and bearing that leads one to believe him to be the 
coming man of Kansas in national affairs. You will say this is 
only the opinion of a love-sick old maid, and that the Governor 
is only an ordinary able man, and that it is only safe to pass such 
high opinions on dead men whose weaknesses have passed forever. 

LlNA GONA. 



IX. 

MAKING AMENDS AND RESOLUTIONS. 

Finding New Convictions. 

Blanco, Kansas, Nov. 30, 1910. 

Miss Gona : That "antiquated philosopher" who said no man 
can help being what he is, would have been more generous and 
nearer right if he had said, "No man can help being what he is 
not." It is a very easy matter for any man to be what he is, but 
when he undertakes to be what a moralist calls a good citizen, is 
when he finds his efforts are ineffectual. 

There is such a general lack of lucidity in what I started to 
say, that you may think I am "inebriating" again. I can assure 
you I am not under the influence of wine and tobacco. I have 
quit them both, maybe not for all time, but I am going to note 
very carefully the effect on my optimistic conduct. If I become a 
pessimist on account of disconnecting myself with these evils, I 
may go back to their consoling influences again. I have com- 
menced what I hope will terminate in a successful courtship. 
Vina has promised to be my bride on much the same conditions 
that you hinted would qualify me for your consideration some 
time ago. 

I think I shall be successful with Vina, for she is so much 
younger than you, not so much set in her ways, and has a greater 
yearning for masculine companionship than you ever had ; be- 
sides, I am going to try harder to make myself what I ought to be 
to win her. 

You have come into my life as a confidant whose lasting friend- 
ship I cherish as much as I cherish Vina's love. Being in love with 

(67) 



68 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

Vina as I am, it is very hard for me to discuss those questions 
which seemed so interesting to you in your last letter, simply 
because I cannot get my mind away from her dear face and form 
long enough to concentrate my thoughts elsewhere. If I had 
taken a glass of wine and a cigar when I sat down to answer your 
letter my mind would have operated at once on those questions, 
political and social, without bobbing around as it is now doing. 
To be in love is to be, in a degree, crazy. If this crazy feeling can 
be mastered, a calm rationality may take its place. However, I 
am fully determined I am not going to resort to wine or tobacco 
in order to answer your letter. 

You spoke about my violating the rules and customs of society 
in the estimate I made about religious and social rules, then you 
immediately attack the business and political rules. Now the 
thought occurs to me that the business rules or land laws of the 
country are about as important to the people as those customs 
which I dislike ; and it seems the welfare of property-owners is at 
stake and that the people in general cannot afford to let your 
theories have full sway ; so I'll proceed to tell you you had better 
keep them locked up in your desk. 

That " divine spark" you noticed was probably caused by the 
wine or tobacco, and I opine that you will not notice any afflatus 
of divinity in this. 

If you should get those " transient sparks" to glowing too 
freely I might get such a following that I could start a new religion 
and I think I'd call it Blankism. I wish I could be as serious, re- 
fined and mannerly as you are in your correspondence ; but that 
is out of the question. I can't do it ; besides, Old Ed Howe and 
Mary Ellen will never know it. I got in the habit from reading 
the cursed, ill-mannered newspapers, and the Atchison Globe was 
one of 'em. You needn't joke me so much about getting into the 
Governor's Mansion. There have been bigger fools than I who 
got into high places. My muse is beginning to wobble about some, 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 69 

but I've chewed off about half of the pencil before I got it, or her, I 
should say, started. Do you think all muses belong to the Higher 
Life? 

Yes, I think the Prohibition Law and the Inheritance Tax Law 
are about alike ; each is as good as the other if not a little better. 

Since I've thought the matter over thoroughly, I've concluded 
it is all wrong for the State to try to manage freight rates. I'm 
"agin" it now. Stubbs is off his job. 

Of course I can see now, since it is too late, that I made a "bad 
break" in saying what I did about the comprehension of women. 
I ask forgiveness. Likely I was "imbibing" too freely when I 
wrote so "trivial," and I thank you for letting me down so easily,- — 
"imbibing" was such a fine word. I plead guilty. 

I do not consider myself any better than a good farm hand; 
and I think you were a little bit too severe in what you said about 
land and mortgages, deeds and bank stock. I do not consider 
that 2% commission, which bankers exact for making big loans, 
an outrage. It takes money to run risks and operate a bank, look 
up abstracts and maybe see the land upon which money is loaned, 
depreciate in value by panics or fool socialistic and populistic laws. 

All I said about inspectors I still defend. It is the case in the 
enforcement of every new law ; it takes a lot of inspectors and a 
lot more appointees and sub-clerks. 

That guarantee-deposit law will be the cause of hard times some 
day, that, together with interest, rent, railroad rate laws. Many 
of the capable men will quit business, put everything into money, 
bank it, and join the automobile brigandage. Whenever laws 
hinder men from exercising their business capacities to their fullest 
extent, then the whole people is sure to suffer the loss of this much 
energy. 

I'm even "going back" on the proposed legislation of regulat- 
ing freight rates. 

Emerson said, "Be yourself every day, no difference if what you 



70 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

say today is contradictory to what you said yesterday." It is very 
convenient to have some good authority to take care of one's 
inconsistencies. Excepting the Bible, Emerson is the best au- 
thority. Dodd Gaston comes as near being a ton of gas, according 
to newspaper parlance, as anything I can imagine. I've been told 
he always sticks his tongue out when he tries to write. He and 
Drake Watson ought to have gimlet-holes drilled in their craniums 1 
to relieve the pressure ; or else get a poetic escape attached like 
Uncle Walt Mason has, "When Christmas comes," said a Kansas 
man. 

You do not know the meaning of some of the wonderful com- 
plex words you use — " Horse Sense." Eh? That is just what I 
have got. There is not a horse in the State but what would get 
out of Topeka or any other city if he could. I don't claim to- 
know very much, but what I do know I know with a vengeance. 

I don't want any intellectual work. Intellectuality is an awful 
contagion. I wouldn't stay around those big libraries and be 
exposed like you are for the best modern home in Topeka. Read- 
ing the newspapers and magazines gives me all the gas-pressure 
I need. Since we have rural mail and telephones I fail to see 
where city people have any advantage of us. We have tragedies 
and comedies enough fully described every day in the dailies with- 
out any of the soulful "make-ups" that pose in the cities. If I 
remember right, according to some of your writings you are not so 
very much attached to such entertainment. 

I did not have any reference to you when I said, "one of the 
many who want me." If God-1-mighty made me indiscreet by 
giving me poor judgment in matter of things to say when I am 
trying to be my best, that's his fault, not mine. 

You talk about potent forces being hidden forces, and that the 
only way to get connection is by Higher Life. You can't connect 
yourself with any kind of force only by thought, except you get 
struck by lightning, run down by an automobile, or something 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 71 

along that line; so it seems you get a little bit platitudinous in 
your search for divine light to guide me in what I say. We are 
not so very far apart on the power of prayer in its religious sense. 
In case of an emergency I think either of us would not neglect to 
keep our "powder dry." 

I'm almightily attached to you in a "spiritual way" — you 
would call it. Maybe after all those spiritual marriages the 
Mormons used to indulge in were along the line of development 
into the Higher Life. 

This Higher Life Cult, being something superior to good-every- 
day common-sense, is altogether a fad, and has no more force as a 
moral guide than good sound judgment. It is a remnant of a 
mystic age, and belongs to Asceticism. 

Judging from the number of preachers who "go wrong" — the 
accounts of which we find in all the news publications — there is no 
better guide to rectitude in the Christian religion than we have in 
common everyday ethics, which the moral medical professions 
refer to as a proper guide to good citizenship. 

I do not see how I am to talk and write less if I keep in touch 
with your mode of action along these lines, and I wouldn't give 
you up for anything except it be Miss Vintage ; and I know I 
can never win her only by keeping in harmony with you, for she 
thinks you are the quintessence of perfect womanhood. 

Our moral and physical natures are not separable ; one cannot 
suffer without the other becoming tainted. If we have a thorough 
knowledge of our physical being it is an easy matter to see the moral 
plane and know its limits. 

The medical profession, from the knowledge it has of the 
human body, is much better qualified to give moral guidance than 
the theologians. If ten of the best doctors in this country, free 
from church taint and dogmatism of every kind, would gel to- 
gether and do their best, they could form a better code of morals 
than the Decalogue, and civilization would be safer and advance 



72 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

to a higher point of perfection than could be attained if all the 
theologians — preachers, priests, bishops, pontiffs all types whatso- 
ever of moralists, so called — would get together and do their best 
on a code for the same purpose. The doctors, the physicians, the 
surgeons are scientists, and know where the restraints to our sen- 
suous natures should be applied. They know the limit to which 
sensuous enjoyments can be safely gratified, beyond which pain, 
vexation and misery follow. Materialistic monism on a scientific 
basis, universally taught and practiced, would benefit the morals 
of this civilization in fifty years more than all the churches, priests 
and preachers have benefitted it in the last 1000 years. 

Universal education and political freedom, coming as they are, 
hand in hand, are the love-lights of emblazoned hopes toward which 
a patient people is looking with confidence. 

In contemplating an existence without a body, an agnostic 
seems more honest than a dogmatist; this holds good, too, in 
thinking a higher life is in some mysterious way connected with our 
physical being. 

An incredulous notion leads me to believe that a graduated 
land-tax law would be an absurdity. I would like to see you out- 
line it and suggest how it should be applied ; then point out how 
it would benefit the State. 

I guess it is like the socialism which is becoming so prevalent — 
looks well as a theory, but no safe way of applying it. 

Is life everlasting? To the extent that matter is everlasting, 
though life may have innumerable forms. 

The individual forms all pass out of consciousness. Force, 
energy, spirit, soul, or whatever other abstractions that may be 
thought of, all are but agencies or properties either passing through 
or belonging to matter. The power to think is purely a property of 
matter. 

In the economy of nature, the object of human life is per- 
petuation, happiness, and contentment; and when lived to its 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 73 

fullest, richest and best extreme, a calm and peaceful willingness 
to cease in favor of other forms. 

Eternal peace awaits all forms of life ; and this prating about 
heaven "on high" is the merest kind of foolishness. 

The natural laws which govern life, health and happiness do 
not conflict, and when they are learned and obeyed no religion 
can equal them in " making life worth its living." 

Truth is bound to be triumphant in this. Science sails ahead 
of all religions, and the way they twist and squirm and overhaul 
their doctrines to sail in the same course without doing damage to 
their creeds, would be pitiful if it were not so amusing. 

Dash Blank. 



X. 

RELIGION, PROHIBITION AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE 
VS. MONISM. 

Topeka, Kansas, Dec. 5, 1910. 

Mr. Blank : You certainly do manifest a very unsteady con- 
dition of thought in most of your letter. There is a general lack 
of dignity in most things you say which leads me to believe you 
would not worry much if I should have nothing more to do with 
you. However, for the sake of hopes which I fondly entertain, I 
shall continue the friendship. The reason your " efforts are in- 
effectual," you do not understand how to apply zeal ; you are too 
much inclined to make fun out of what ought to be sacred. You 
can be lucid when you try, but you seem to enjoy letting your 
conclusions go against religion. The most redeeming feature I 
see about you now is that you are going to quit those bad habits, 
consequently I look for a wonderful change in you before long. 

You are hoping for a successful courtship ; many a successful 
courtship is the beginning of a very unsuccessful marriage ; and 
if you should change your mind on matters of domestic and marital 
importance and lightly shift the change onto Emerson or some 
other authority, what a lot of disappointment and unhappiness 
might follow! Some men, and women too, do not consider mar- 
riage from a sacred point of view, but act upon the "crazy" im- 
pulse of the moment. You committed yourself in the assertion 
that you were, in a degree, " crazy." 

See how easy it is to go wrong when you are too emotional. 
Perhaps the warmth and fervency you are having with the divine 
passion aroused by Vina's youth and beauty will subside before 
another year rolls around. Then what? Like most other men, 

(74) 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 75 

you will see some other young, accomplished woman who, unin- 
tentionally, will make you "in a degree, crazy." I must admit 
I have suffered considerable disappointment, yes, and have even 
shed tears — though shedding tears seems to be a part of a woman's 
life, and really gives her some relief— because I permit myself 
to love you u in a degree." How handy! 

Now, Dash, I am going to speak as plainly to you as I can ; 
my own experience, as well as the wide observation I have taken 
from other women, will bear me out in what I have to say. 
You are not the man to make Vina happy. Your life, in marriage, 
would not blend with hers; you are too old and unyielding. 
There would be inharmony from the very first. She is deeply 
religious. She has been reared on religion and poverty in a barren 
country, away from the evils of city society, and is as pure in her 
maidenhood as a woman can be. She believes in a heaven, she 
believes in Sunday Schools, and is devoted to all her church rules ; 
and the Decalogue is a good deal more to her than your agnostic 
views are to you. She believes that intelligence is the work of the 
brain, and that love and religion are the works of the heart. She 
classes morality with the mind, and love and religion with the 
spirit, belonging to the Higher Life. She believes you must love 
your neighbor as you do yourself. If you should swear before 
her as you once good-naturedly did before me, she would be 
shocked — disgusted with you to a point of dismissal. 

I am glad to know that I remain a trusted confidant ; I did 
hope to be more ; but could easily see how perfectly natural it 
would be for you to become attached to Vina in blooming youth 
and beauty, in preference to me. It is true that she is more easily 
impressed now, but to say that she has more desire for " masculine 
attention" than I ever did, is putting it too strong. Had you 
come into my society when I was Vina's age, I know I should have 
been at your mercy. Twelve years of experience and observation 
have made me able to see the married state as it really is. Many 



76 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

marriages are not a failure, but too many are ; so consider, Dash, 
what the marriage may be in point of success, and not the court- 
ship. I am not in a position to give Vina advice in this ; advice 
from me would be more apt to be misconstrued— she knowing 
that I have entertained you in an intimate friendship — than from 
any other source. 

I hope you can appreciate the precarious situation I am in, 
and not misconstrue anything either. 

Philosophy is a feeble weapon with which to combat passion. 
Passion is often blind to every form of reason; this is a religious 
sentiment. Lina has been taught that the promptings of the 
heart are the spirit of God. 

You have said so much in burlesque on sacred topics that I 
am inclined to let you alone so far as making any reply at present 
is concerned. You will likely meet an experience before long, 
which will be more convincing than any argument; so I shall 
deliberate some on that Graduated Tax theory. I do not claim to 
be qualified to do the subject justice, for the theory is not mine ; 
but I have noticed all new theories have to contend with ridicule. 

An assessment on about $5000 might be termed the first or 
primary assessment on land owned by any one person, and we will 
suppose that this assessment will be about $100 per year. Now, 
whatever land any one person owns over and above the value of 
$5000 should be assessed 100 per cent more up to $10,000, making 
the second grade amount to $200 for the second-grade holding; 
so that a man would have to pay $300 taxes on a $10,000 prop- 
erty and only $100 on a $5000. On all properties over $10,000 
valuation, make a still higher grade of assessment, so high that 
men would not invest in land for speculation. This would in- 
crease the tax funds of the State immensely, and would have a 
tendency to increase the farming population. But in connection 
with this proposed Graduated Tax Law it would be necessary to 
enact a rent law prohibiting the owner of a $10,000 farm from 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 77 

charging more than $600 — or this equivalent in grain or stock — 
yearly rent. If this were not done, the owners of large tracts of 
land would charge the renter enough to defeat the increased assess- 
ment and make the renter pay it. This proposed legislation is 
on the same basis that we are demanding of the railroads when we 
claim they should only charge enough to realize 6 per cent, on their 
physical valuation. 

The tax funds of the State would be greatly augmented by a 
Graduated Tax Law, and the State could commence " conserva- 
tion" by putting in fills across the draws on all section lines hold- 
ing the rainfall to prevent floods, and the same work would advance 
the Good-Roads Proposition, giving at the same time more em- 
ployment ; so that every citizen would be benefitted. 

The Mail and Breeze will probably outline a very thorough 
plan for a Graduated Tax Law before long-; this paper has made 
mention of such a law many times. 

You seem to have had several flights in the latter part of your 
communication, and to belittle religion is a fair sample of your 
fairness. Now, because some preachers have "gone wrong" is 
nothing in particular to the discredit of the Christian Religion. 
Men in all the vocations go wrong. If you should commit some 
serious crime, the evil of it should not be charged to the business 
which you operate in or had operated in prior to the committal. 

Your denunciation of the Higher Life, in which so many find 
enjoyment, is nothing against the "fad" as a theory. Every ad- 
vancement that has ever been made in the history of society was 
preceded by a theory, and when any man sets his judgment up 
against established views' on religious questions, using such sweep- 
ing assertions as you do, he runs the risk of making himself ridicu- 
lous. If you cannot see any good in such cults, it degrades you 
in the estimation of a great many nice people who do believe in 
them as being sound ^doctrines. You^surely cannot claim there 
is harm or evil attached to the support of a cult like the Higher 



78 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

Life. Those who believe in the Higher Life do not believe in the 
degrading doctrine of Eternal Punishment, which, to a refined, 
sensitive nature, is one of the most horrible things imaginable to 
be imposed for a disbelief or lack of faith. 

In this recent cult, the Higher Life, the beatitude of the old- 
time Religion is being preserved and the horrible place of fire is 
disclaimed. 

The modern Christian is nothing like the one who used to burn 
witches ; he tries to get in the front rank of every movement that 
is good, gracious and gentle. As a citizen he is quiet, unobtrusive, 
and free from bad habits. He sees the betterment of our civiliza- 
tion in the Prohibition movement, and I believe he would be the 
first one to help in prohibiting the manufacture and sale of tobacco. 

Some of the best people I know are Christians, and are very 
devotional. They have very learned writers, one of whom is 
Hugh Black, who claims that a man may be moral in self-culture 
and in all his relations to his fellow-men and yet lack the most 
important essential of being good from the fact that his feelings 
from the heart have not led him into the highest exaltation of the 
emotional life of his being, which worship, faith and love of God 
give him. There is something so beatifying in this claim that one 
likes to believe it and it gives many felicitations ; and as there is 
no harm about it, I do not see any cause for denouncing it. It has 
been a comfort to those whose burdens would have driven them to 
acts of desperation but for this consoling claim. 

It is claimed by this same writer that the best moralist when 
trouble overrakes him will succumb to grief when he has not this 
spiritual help to sustain him. We are so different in our emotional 
natures and in our imaginations too, that we should not try to 
hinder magnanimity. Your skepticism will grieve Vina more 
than it does me, for she dearly loves the church and Sunday school. 

I have not noticed that doctors are any more moral than 
preachers, and I might denounce their profession because some of 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 79 

them "go wrong" — as did Dr. Crippen — as being unworthy of 
continuation on the same grounds that you belittle the churches. 
But what is the use? — for prejudice is almost as hard to get rid 
of — especially when it suits a certain purpose — as the color of 
one's hair. 

When you name the men who have believed in monism — 
which is only another name for materialism — and show by their 
works that they have been as progressive and helpful to civiliza- 
tion as men who have believed in immortality and the good in- 
fluence of the Higher Life, then it will be more consistent to pro- 
claim your materialistic and .agnostic views. 

What you said about Political Freedom and universal education 
was very eloquent, but I should like to call your attention to the 
fact that these blessings have not given us industrial freedom yet, 
nor will they till there is an all-pervading goodness of heart, — 
such generous impulses as we are told come from the teachings of 
the Higher Life. 

The power of thought, you contend, is purely a property of 
matter ; but you neglected to say that matter does not produce 
thought only when there is a hidden force present. This hidden 
force redounds from one side of the earth to the other — either with 
or without wire — and perhaps throughout the universe : now are 
you prepared to say that all space occupies matter? More light, 
Dash, more light! 

We had just as well dismiss the unknowable, and confine in- 
vestigation to something we can see and feel. 

The State Temperance Union is now in session, and it is worth 
the while of every good citizen to help maintain the good effects 
Prohibition has given Kansas. There is an organized effort 
among men who manufacture intoxicants, to use political influence 
to resubmit the law as soon as possible, on the ground that it will 
benefit the business of the State. The only business it can pos- 
sibly benefit is the business of producing crime, making criminal 



80 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

lawsuits, giving unscrupulous lawyers a better chance to start 
litigations ; and all this at the expense of the peace and prosperity 
of the people. 

The Liquor men are the worst enemies society has to contend 
with. Some of them claim there is more liquor sold in Kansas 
now than before the law was enacted. This is the most incon- 
sistent claim they could make ; for if it were true it would be to 
their interests to have prohibition established everywhere. Every 
man who has the welfare of his children to protect will oppose the 
traffic in every way he can. These enemies of society will not 
come out in the open and advocate their cause through the Kansas 
papers; but they will skulk into the unprotected places where 
dishonest, scheming politicians will give them aid to accomplish 
their vile plans among the ignorant and vicious voters. 

Kansas needs Woman Suffrage with which to sustain the Pro- 
hibition law. Those who give Woman Suffrage any serious re- 
flection, and are honest with themselves, must admit that the 
women are as intelligent and moral as the men are. This being 
true, what an influence for good is being wasted by keeping them 
away from what is due them, — the right to vote! 

There are a great many unmarried men, most of them foreigners 
who work on the railroads and do street work in the cities, who 
have no homes here, who are here temporarily, who have no in- 
terest in our welfare, — all of whom will vote for liquor men. 

Woman Suffrage would defeat this element. 

LlNA GONA. 



XI. 

QUOTING SCRIPTURE. 

Miss Gona : I hold there can be no dignity without honesty. 
A deceitful manner may be taken for dignity, by which whole 
multitudes are made to uphold all kinds of absurdities. The 
absurdities contained in the Bible are without a parallel, and it is 
useless for me to try to believe this so-called divine revelation. 

There was a time when men of good sense were excusable for 
believing the Bible to be something more than the thoughts of 
men ; but that time has passed, since the scientific works of Dar- 
win, Huxley, and Haeckel, have become so universally read. 

I bought $150 worth of books, all of which are said to be 
standard works ; so I have information enough at hand to uphold 
any assertion I may make with dignified honesty, instead of using 
deceitful dignity as preachers are doing. I have loaned Miss 
Vintage some of these and asked her to read, if possible, without 
prejudice. You have said much which was beneficial to me, but 
I cannot surrender my personality or desert my convictions to win 
in a courtship, and if I fail in getting Miss V. to accept my views 
on all social, moral, religious, and political questions, I shall 
willingly leave her to a Christian union with whomsoever she may 
desire. 

In considering the Christian religion, I desire to call your at- 
tention to Gen. ii, 17 : " And the Lord God formed man of the dust 
of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and 
man became a living soul." If this account of the creation of man 
has anything in it, except myth, and superstition to uphold it, it 
is up to the Christian to look it up and present it. Nothing is 

(81) 



82 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

more untenable than this account of the creation of man, except 
it be the creation of woman : " And the rib, which the Lord God 
had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the 
man." Gen. ii, 22. 

Aside from the grammatical construction of this quotation, 
the dignity of the Lord God is belittled by a skillful account of 
surgery unknown to the scientists of this age, who will not indorse 
the rib story. 

"And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the 
garden in the cool of the day ; and Adam and his wife hid them- 
selves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the 
garden." Gen. iii : 8. To enter a disputation against this pas- 
sage, it is only necessary to state that voices do not walk. If it 
had been stated that a wireless evidence of the presence of the Lord 
had caused them to hide themselves, it would have been more 
tenable. 

"Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make 
coats of skins, and clothed them." Gen. iii : 21. The idea of the 
Lord God skinning sheep or goats, or whatever else, is giving his 
dignity a pretty hard strain ; and to try to get people to believe 
such stuff in this day and age of the world, is a very elastic job, 
to say nothing of the outrage on honesty and dignity. 

"Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of 
Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." Gen. iii: 
23. It would be useless to deny the passage, but this inquiry 
naturally arises : "How would it be possible for Adam to till the 
soil without tools?" 

This account of the creation of the world is such a childish 
fabrication, that it is not worthy of a dignified consideration. It 
is based entirely on myth, superstition, and credulity. 

As to the moral teachings of the Bible, reference is made to 
many precepts in the name of the Lord, or thus saith the Lord, 
all of which are disgusting to decent society and many of which 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 83 

are too obscene to be allowed transmission through the U. S. 
mails. 

Christ made wine for the people after they were already 
drunk. John ii : 3-11. 

" Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's 
sake and thine often infirmities." I. Timothy v : 23. 

Read Jeremiah, xxv : 27, 28 : "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts : 
Drink ye, and be drunken, and spew, and fall, and rise no more, 
because of the sword I will send among you. And it shall be, if 
they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt 
thou say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts : Ye shall 
certainly drink." 

Many other passages encourage and sanction drunkenness. 
Matt, ii : 19 ; Isa. xxviii : 7, 8 ; Ezek. xxiii : 33, 34 ; Judges, ix : 13 ; 
Deut. xiv : 26 ; Ps. civ : 15 ; II. Sam. vi : 19, and xiv : 2 ; Chron. 
ii : 10 ; Eccl. ix : 7 ; Song of Solomon v : 1 ; Prov. iii : 10, and xxxi : 
6, 7 ; Zech. ix : 17 ; Joel i : 5. 

Slavery and all the cruelty connected with it get sanction in 
these passages : Lev. xxv : 44-46, x. xxi : 2-8, and in verses xx and 
xxi the cruelty finds sanction; Neh. v: 5; Joel iii: 8; I. Peter 
ii: 18; Eph. vi : 5 ; I. Tim. vi : 1. 

Falsehoods and deceptions of every kind make a considerable 
part of what is called divine revelation. Refer to these : "If the 
prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have 
deceived that prophet." Ezek. xiv : 9 ; I. Kings xxii : 20-23. 

"God shall send them strong delusions that they should be- 
lieve a lie." II. Thes. ii : 1-3. 

God rewards the midwives for their deception. Ex. i : 15-20. 
He also instructs Samuel to deceive. I. Sam. xvi : 20. God com- 
manded Moses to deceive. Ex. iii : 18. Promiscuous lying. 
Gen. xviii : 25 ; Gen. xxvi : 7. 

Christ taught in parables that he might deceive the people. 
Mark xiv: 11, 12. The Apostle Paul did no better. Rom. iii: 



84 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

7 ; Jer. xx : 7, and xv : 18 ; Gen. xii : 13-19 ; xxix : 25 ; xxxi : 34, 
35. 

Theft, robbery and cheating have plenty of support in many 
passages. Gen. xx : 29-34 ; xxx : 30-43 ; xviii : 24. 

Jacob was beloved by God, yet these deeds are the foundations 
of Christianity. Deut. xiv : 21 ; Numbers, 21st chapter ; Josh, 
vi: 19-24; viii : 22-29; I. Samuel xxvii : 8-12. 

No decent person would indorse Gen. xix : 8 ; Judges xix : 24- 
30. "O fools and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have 
spoken." Luke xxiv : 25. "If any man come unto me and hate 
not his father and mother, wife and children, and brethren and 
sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." 
Luke xiv : 26. 

According to this, all the preachers and priests must hate all 
their relatives before they can be actual disciples of Christ. 

The universal peace, love and god-will towards men, is here 
denounced in very plain terms. Is this the Christianity that 
claims to have civilized the world? 

The world has become civilized because of such men as Darwin, 
Haeckel, Paine, Voltaire, Washington, Lincoln, Fulton, and Edi- 
son. These, with the hundreds of educators and scientists, to- 
gether with the thousands of writers and publishers, are the real 
civilizers. 

The teachings of the Bible have been more detrimental than 
instrumental in building up our state and national institutions. 

Here are specimens : "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace 
on earth? I tell you nay, but rather division." Luke xii: 51. 
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came 
not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at 
varianc? against his father, and the daughter against her mother, 
and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." Matt, x : 35. 

"Then said he unto them, but now, he that hath a purse, let 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 



him take it, and likewise his scrip ; and he that hath no sword, 
let him sell his garment and buy one." Luke xxii : 36. 

"And he said unto them, unto you it is given to know the 
mystery of the kingdom of God ; but unto them that are without, 
all these things are done in parables; that seeing they may see 
not to perceive ; and hearing they may hear and not understand ; 
lest at any time they should be converted and their sins should be 
forgiven them." Mark iv : 11, 12; St. John xii : 40. 

Here is a scheme to entice men into eternal punishment. "He 
that believeth and be baptized shall be saved, but he that be- 
lieveth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them 
that believe." 

"In my name shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak with 
new tongues ; they shall take up serpents, and if they take any 
deadly thing it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the 
sick and they shall recover." Mark xvi : 16-18. 

According to this there are none who can produce the testi- 
mony to prove that they are believers. 

Credulity, ignorance and vagrancy are special virtues according 
to these: Matt, vi : 26-34; v : 25 ; v : 39; x : 20, 21. 

Take any kind of abuse contradictory to the above, what fol- 
lows indicates that the other extreme of foolishness and cruelty is 
acceptable in the law of the Lord: "Cursed be he that keepeth 
back his sword from blood." Jer. xlviii : 10. "And the brother 
shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child : 
and the children shall rise up against their parents and shall 
cause them to be put to death." Matt, x: 20, 21. "Thus saith 
the Lord God of Israel : Put every man his sword by his side and 
go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay 
every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every 
man his neighbor." Ex. xxxii : 27. 

"Spare them not, but slay every man and woman, infant and 
suckling." I. Sam. xv : 3. "Slay utterly both old and young, 



86 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

both maids and little children." Ezek. ix : 6 ; Ex. ii : 12. I. 
Samuel xv : 32, 33 ; II. Kings ix : 33 ; Isa. xlv : 7. 

For cruelty and hideous conduct in the name of the Lord God, 
there is nothing in the history of the most savage tribes any worse 
than these teachings. War is held to be very righteous, and the 
Bible says more in its praise than in condemnation, and says that 
God is a man of war. Ex. xv : 3. 

"Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth 
give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save nothing alive that 
breatheth ; but thou shalt utterly destroy them." Deut. xx : 
16, 17. 

"And they warred against the Midianites as the Lord com- 
manded Moses ; and they slew all the males. And the children 
of Israel took all the women captive, and their little ones." Num- 
bers xxxi : 7-10. Then Moses the righteous man of God becomes 
angry, and gives this awful command: "Kill every male among 
the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man, but 
all the women children that hath not known man by lying with 
him, keep for yourselves." Numbers xxxi : 17, 18 ; xxxiii : 52-55 ; 
Deut. ii : 24, 25, 34 ; iii : 36 ; Josh, vi : 2-21 ; Josh, xii : 24. 

"I come not to send peace, but a sword." Matt, x: 34. 
"Happy shall he be that taketh thy little ones and dasheth them 
against the stones." Ps. xiii: 7-9. "Their children shall be 
dashed to pieces before their eyes ; their homes spoiled, and their 
wives ravished." Isa. xiii: 15-18; Nah. iii: 10; Zech. xiv : 2; 
Hosea xiii : 16 ; II. Samuel xii : 15-18. 

"I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you 
of your children." Lev. xxvi : 22. "I the Lord thy God am a 
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, 
unto the third and fourth generations." Ex. xx: 5. "As the 
church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their husbands 
in everything. Eph. v : 24. Wives, submit yourselves. Col. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 87 

iii : 18. Jer. xviii : 21 ; I. Cor. xiv : 34, 35 ; I. Peter iii : 1 ; I. 
Timothy ii : 11-14; L Cor. vii : 36, Ex. xxi : 7, 8. 

The commands given in some of these passages are the lowest 
kind of crimes. Judges xxi: 50-23; Deut. xxi: 10-14; xxiv : 1. 
It is strange that women can read heinous crimes allowed by 
Holy Writ, against themselves, and still consider the Bible the 
best of all books. Prov. xxi : 10. 

"Thus saith the Lord : I will rise up against thee, out of thine 
own, and I will take thy wives before thine own eyes, and give 
them to thy neighbor, and he shall lie with them in the sight of the 
sun." II. Samuel xii : 13. The sanction of human sacrifice and 
cannibalism. Jud. xi : 26-40 ; II. Samuel xii : 13. "And ye shall 
eat the flesh of your sons, and your daughters ye shall eat." 
Lev. xxvi : 9. 

" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, 
ye have no life in you." St. John vi : 53. 

If all the obscene, disgusting passages in the Bible were ex- 
cluded, it would be more respectable, but still depravity and false- 
hood and superstition are so evident, that it is not decent enough 
to make good every-day reading, because of the outrageous lies. 
Numbers xi : 31 ; II. Chron. xxviii : 6 ; Rev. xii : 3, 4 ; Col. ii : 8 ; 
Cor. viii : 1. 

Christians are good only because they are so closely associated 
with the wisdom of science, and not because of the teachings of the 
Bible, which kept civilization in war for many centuries ; and if 
this civilization with all of its masterful accomplishments degener- 
ates into the conditions which prevailed during the dark, bloody 
ages after the fall of the Roman Empire, it will be because of the 
teachings of the Bible. Many church-goers never take an} r interest 
in the Bible, because it does not contain the information applica- 
ble to this age. 

It is not in keeping with harmony to say much in opposition to 
the Bible; but I desire to present enough herein, all of which I 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 



desire to have you and Vina discuss together, — for she tells me 
she is going to spend a month or two with you as soon as she has 
the opportunity, — to convince you both that the Bible is alto- 
gether the product of human beings, the same as all other books, 
and that there is nothing divine or supernatural about it. 

"The peace habitations are cut down because of the fierce 
anger of the Lord." Jer. xxv : 37. 

"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is 
filthy, let him be filthy still." Rev. xxii : 11. 

"If any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant." I. Cor. xiv : 
28 ; Matt, x : 16 ; Eccl. i : 18. 

Here are many passages that are too obscene to go through 
the U. S. mails : Isa. iii : 17 ; xlvii : 3 ; Nah. hi : 5, 6 ; Jer. 
xiii: 22-26; Ezek. xvi : 37-40; Gen., 38th chapter; Ezek., 
16th chapter; Gen. xix : 30-38; xx : 18-25, 26; Ex. xxiii : 
23; Lev. xv : 16-33; Deut. xxiii: 1-13; xxv: 11, 12; I. 
Samuel xxv : 22 ; II. Samuel xi : 2-5 ; I. Kings xiv : 10 ; xvi : 
11; xxi: 21; II. Kings ix : 8; Job xl : 16,17; Sol. Song vii : 
2, 3 ; Ezek. xxiii : 3 ; Luke i : 41-44 ; Rom. i, 26, 27. 

The story of Jonah. Matt, xii : 14; Matt, xxvii : 57-62; 
Mark xvi : 12, and the ascension of Christ, are contradictory and 
too extravagant for men of this age to believe. 

Such foolish facts as the genealogies of Christ, given in Matt., 
first and second chapters, and Luke in chapter third, are in accord 
with monstrous stories in II. Chron. xxviii : 6 ; Num. xi : 31 ; 
Psalms lxxviii : 27 ; Mark vii : 23 ; Matt, xvii : 21 ; xxi : 22 ; 
Jud. i : 19. 

"The time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that 
he doeth God's service." St. John xvi : 2; Mark xii : 27; Joel 
iii : 10 ; Ex. xxxii : 27. 

In pointed contradictions the Bible certainly takes first prize. 
"The strength of Israel will not lie, nor repent, for he is not a 
man that he should repent." I. Samuel xv : 29 ; xxxiv : 36. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 89 

" Those that seek me early shall find me." Prov. viii : 17. 
"They shall seek me early but shall not find me." Prov. i : 27. 

"He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never 
forgiveness." Mark hi : 29 ; Acts xiii : 39. 

Elisha went to heaven. II. Kings xii : 11. "No man hath 
ascended up to heaven but he that cometh down from heaven, 
even the Son of man which is in heaven." St. John iii : 13. 

Luke xix : 29-34 leaves a bad record of Jesus. 

God makes robbers prosperous : Job xii : 16. 

He also creates and brings evils: Isa. xlv : 7; Jer. xi : 11; 
xiv : 12. The Lord sent lions and hornets : Ex. xxiii : 28 ; Sol. 
Song viii : 8 ; and Ezek. xxiii : 3. 

"I will heap mischief upon the people's heads." Deut. xxxii : 
22-25 ; Ps. xviii : 7-10 ; I. Kings i : 2. 

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." II. Tim. 
iii : 16. So everything herein referred to is direct from God. 
Joshua cut men's noses off so God would know them when they 
got to heaven : v : 5-2. 

If Christians like to read such old trash as the Bible contains, 
of course they should be allowed the privilege. 

Pope said a wonderful thing when he uttered this: "All are 
parts of a stupendous whole, whose body nature is, and God the 
soul." 

Now this opens a new conclusion. All creation, the whole 
universe, is nature ; and all the force, energy, thought and all 
abstractions whatsoever connected with tfhis universe make what 
Pope says is God ; then I shall have to admit, after all, that the 
Bible is a part of the word of God ; and a very inferior part — so 
inferior that compared with other books it is not worthy of the 
room it occupies. 

In my youthful days I attended Sunday school and belonged 
to a Bible class ; and the most tiresome intellectual trials I ever 
encountered were connected with the Bible class. A nice, pleas- 



90 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

ant young woman, out of respect for whom I withhold a pretty 
name, gave instructions and pretended to understand the appli- 
cations of the tiresome chapters which were analyzed at the 
country church. 

All the good that came from those Bible classes that I could 
see was, that it gave the young people a chance to get together 
and create courtships. They never took enough interest in the 
Bible lessons to discuss them among themselves. 

During recitations most of the class acted like they thought 
they were going through forms of foolishness, but out of respect 
for each other and their pious parents they tried to believe there 
was something superior in these Sunday schools as compared to 
the day schools; but it was very noticeable that they did not 
enter into the study of the Bible with the same sagacious energy 
which was everywhere in evidence. In those days I could not 
understand the cause of the indifference toward the Sunday 
school lessons; but now I can plainly see that it was because a 
false estimation was everywhere placed upon the contents of the 
Bible. 

It was considered very, very wicked to question any of the 
statements in the Bible, but the young people noticed that the 
different denominations would wrangle a good deal over the mean- 
ing of certain passages; this disagreement often led to neigh- 
borhood disturbances. 

I am satisfied there would have been a good deal more har- 
mony if there had only been one denomination. But rivalry in 
church as everywhere else gave the ambitious young preachers 
a chance to work with more animation, and it also made a greater 
demand for the most useless of all professional men. The saving 
of souls is an innocuous desuetude so lucid and lasting in its 
mysticism, so profound and penetrating in its explanation, and 
so important and eternal in its usefulness, that a great many 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 91 

loquacious theologians have found this popular means of being 
pious very profitable. 

No doubt some of them are very honest in their work. 

The law of substance with the space-filling ether, the animal- 
culse, science and the cellular philosophy demonstrated in evolu- 
tion, showing that the soul and body exist as one only, has a be- 
ginning and ending in cellular transformation, is too complicated, 
— yes, this law of substance is too complex in its details for a the- 
ologian to comprehend. 

The light of science has sounded the shallowness of orthodoxy, 
and of course the laymen will have to learn it without help from 
the preacher, who is not to blame. He can only comprehend so 
much; besides, he cannot violate policy. 

Helen Kellar, one of the most remarkable beings, says on page 
112, in the " Story of My Life" : "I dearly love the Bible ; still 
there is much in the Bible which every instinct of my being rebels 
so much, that I regret the necessity which has compelled me to 
read it through from beginning to end. I do not think the knowl- 
edge which I have gained of its history and its source compensate 
me for the unpleasant details it has placed upon me. For my part, 
I wish with Mr. Howells, that the literature of the past might be 
purged of all that is ugly and barbarous in it." Why does this 
poor blind woman dearly love the Bible if she thinks she has not 
been compensated because of the rebellious, unpleasant details 
connected with it? I can only account for her statement on the 
supposition that she has not yet discovered that it is utterly false 
in what it is claimed to be by those who call themselves eminent 
divines. 

The Gifford Lectures, by Max Muller, show beyond contra- 
diction that the best sentiments in the Bible are found in the 
Veda, and Talmud, which books were the guides in religious teach- 
ings before Christ. 

Comparative Theology, traced in these centuries by a man who 



92 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

claims to be a Christian, leaves Christianity without any more 
divine origin than any other book. So at last the very men (it is 
absurd to call them divines) have shown that all religions which 
require prayer and worship, originated in the ignorant superstition 
of a prehistoric age. 

Scientific truths, capable of demonstration, are better for 
sociology than any of the established religions ; and if it were not 
for those truths all the different Christian religions would be as 
slavish and destructive of human liberty as they were in the Dark 
Ages. 

There is enough money wasted in building churches and hiring 
preachers to provide homes for all the poverty-stricken on the face 
of the globe. The coming civilization, if all the various church- 
building religions can be kept out of state management, will be so 
superior to this civilization that there will be no poor, deluded 
wretches wedded to the belief that it is " God's will" that they 
must drudge and toil to sustain churches and preachers. 

I have done without tobacco and wine long enough to have 
been convinced that they are. evils which should no longer be toler- 
ated, and I am going to allow you the credit of this change in my 
habits of living. I find that my mind is more clear and active, 
and that my body is more supple, and has more endurance. 

I shall answer your good, long lectures more fully next time I 
write. Your friendship is worth more to me in this stage of my 
existence than I can compute, for it has created a desire to read 
and study. 

The automobile is losing its attraction, excepting as a utility. 

Dash Blank. 



XII. 

A WARNING, AND A THREAT TO PUBLISH 
QUOTATIONS. 

Mr. Blank : Our relation to each other in its literary worth 
(if it has any) may be a part of a book sometime ; so the radical 
views you express are apt to come under the eyes of your- children 
if you should be so fortunate as to have any ; being aware of this, 
you may be more careful in what you say. According to our 
private verbal agreement in which you offered to sustain any 
financial need that might come to me in case I should attempt 
literature as a means of being independent in old age, I feel obliged 
to be as lenient, careful, and candid as I can. 

This is Christmas week, and Vina is with me. Your letter, 
which she defines as a reckless essay, has been under discussion, 
and contempt. She says it seems incredible that one as intelligent 
as you ought to be, considering the chance you have had, would 
write such a "dejectable mixture." The books you have given 
her to read, she says, are so full of scientific terms that she cannot 
understand their meaning ; and she intends to put off the wedding 
day till she learns all about theology, anthropology, cosmography, 
and the Nebular Hypothesis. 

We have been searching for those references, many of which 
prove the corruptibility of the mind of the person who would seek 
them out, instead of reading and dwelling on the beautiful verses 
found in so many places in the Bible. God had to present the low 
and degraded in order to give strength and appreciation to the 
grand, noble, beautiful revelations; and so far as either of us is 
concerned, we would rather the Bible did not contain some of 

(93) 



94 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

those verses ; but even then, it would not be so forcible in bring- 
ing evil spirits into a reflection whereby we might shun them.' 

Your scoffing at the book that has been believed for ages to be 
the divine authority will not change its authenticity. The good 
and bad, the high and low, the evil and just, are necessarily mixed 
in creation, and you might learn a good lesson from the monkey 
in the tree : it gathered and ate the nice, juicy fruit and would not 
so much as soil its fingers with the decayed, filthy parts of the 
product. I am giving you the argument as Vina dictates it. She 
claims translation might have been imperfect, and says you should 
judge the tree by the good fruit it bears, and refers you to the 
people who patronize the churches as compared to those who dis- 
believe in them, those who drink, gamble, steal, lie, murder, and 
bear false witness. 

Until you can show a better class of disbelievers than be- 
lievers, your scoffing will have no effect. Most of the people who 
hold the high responsible positions of school and state support the 
churches, even though they see weakness in the doctrines. No 
person is made worse by believing in eternal life, and to believe that 
a reward is in store for all those who are faithful has helped many 
a poor patient soul to strive on, endure pain and hardship and live 
a much better life than he would have lived without his belief. 

You are only making yourself unpopular and disgusting to 
attack the churches. If the doctrines of the church are not in 
accord with scientific achievements, those doctrines will not re- 
tard the growth of further scientific investigations, even if the 
discrepancies are not publicly discussed. It is poor policy to de- 
nounce religion simply because science has some investigators 
who do not make a profession of faith in the Bible. 

You speak of preachers making use of a "deceitful dignity" 
in their church work; I must say I have never seen any of^it. 
Any tirade made against a professional man for supporting a 
cause in which he has a living, and in which he believes there is a 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 95 

good moral effect on the community, is unworthy of a man, no 
matter how honest he may be in his convictions. 

This first day of January, 1911, I have a copy of the Appeal 
to Reason, which as good as charges the officials of our great 
country, at Washington, with malice in bringing suit against Fred 
Warren, with a view to suppress, or at least intimidate Warren, 
the editor. Warren has been convicted, sentenced to jail, and to 
pay a fine of SI 500. 

The facts are that Warren was instrumental in freeing Moyer, 
Heywood, and Pettibone, who had been kidnapped by officials 
in Colorado and taken to Idaho for trial. Daring this trial, or 
shortly after, he offered a reward for the return of an ex-governor 
of Kentucky through the same processes practiced upon Moyer, 
Heywood and Pettibone ; and for offering this reward the officials 
gave vent to the malice which has lodged him in jail. The judge 
who pronounced the sentence did it on the technicality of it having 
been "scurrilous and defamatory bo the character of the ex-gov- 
ernor" — who was hiding from justice — for the reward to be placed 
on a postal card which went through the mails. 

To think that the high officials of our government, through 
prejudiced judges, would seek to humiliate and persecute the pub- 
lisher of a paper not in accord with their views, and thus belittle 
themselves as well as dishonor their high offices, seems almost 
incredible ; but they did it, and as a consequence of having done 
it, they ought to be sentenced to political oblivion. 

It would have been bad enough for some local politician 
who had no office, to have urged the prosecution, but for one in 
high authority to do such a low, mean thing, is enough to blacken 
his record forever. What troubles me more than anything else 
is : Did Roosevelt, the idol of the world, have anything to do 
with this outrageous deed? I have seen Warren, and heard him 
speak; concluded he was an extremist, but not by any means a 
criminal. His neighbors and fellow-citizens claim he is a model 



96 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

husband and father, and has the sympathy and confidence of the 
whole town of Girard, and the whole force of his publications, as 
well as the good citizens and neighbors, are going to loyally pro- 
claim his innocence of any crime. 

This leads me into an investigation of his life and work. Mr. 
Roosevelt has been the most honored American citizen of the last 
decade, and I am not ready to believe that he would abuse our 
free institutions of justice and progression in order to cast re- 
flections on any opposing political party. 

Some defects of our social compact solicit the writers of this 
age to give a very deliberate analysis of our overcrowded cities — 
not that there is not sufficient house-room in the cities, for in the 
resident portions of every city there are magnificent, splendid 
homes containing from eight to twenty rooms and more, finely 
furnished, and yet vacant. Overcrowded the cities are, because 
there is not lucrative employment to give these workers a decent 
living. Some of these vacant, nicely furnished rooms might be 
rented. But no, they were not made to give comfort and pro- 
tection to human beings, but were made to display the vanity of 
despoilers, and in some cases to shelter pet dogs, and not to be 
rented to those who are huddled together in foul, vice-breeding 
shacks, devoid of all sanitary conveniences. 

A proposed relief is to get back to the land and help produce 
food, instead of consuming it ; but there is no feasible way of 
getting the surplus product of humanity back to the land with the 
assurance of any comfort, for those who own the large vacant 
houses in the cities also own the land, or have options on it 
through real-estate companies, — a better name for these would 
be modern slave organizations, — which have legal facilities for 
putting the surplus product of humanity on just as short rations 
out on the farm land as they have in the cities. 

Maybe the Socialists are right in a degree, after all. Maybe 
it would be better for the government to confiscate all the land, 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 97 

except those small and medium-sized farms upon which the 
owners reside, and give this surplus product of humanity a chance 
to till the soil for the State, or, in other words, for themselves. 

If not, why not? The Supreme Being made the land. 

Anything like such a confiscation would create such a commo- 
tion that society would hardly survive, even if it were done by a 
popular vote of the people, unless a well-defined provision were 
outlined in such a clear manner that the average individual could 
comprehend it. This provision would necessarily have to be 
made popular by a small degree of application to make it pro- 
ficient and permanent, and instead of a sweeping confiscation it 
seems the better way would be for the State to commence the 
reconstruction of society by buying a considerable tract of land — 
not at the present inflated, speculative values, but on a physical 
valuation, to be determined by the improvements thereon and 
natural fertility of the soil; condemn it for further private use, 
regardless of what the owner might demand, and thus start the 
employment of those who have jobs which are insufficiently 
remunerative, to enable them to supply themselves with all the 
comforts which these times of enlarged production ought to afford 
to every one willing to work. In using such condemned land to 
employ surplus laborers, as an agricultural experiment, would be 
a substantial move against private exploitation. 

So much of the State's work in the agricultural line at present 
done by the State Agricultural College at Manhattan, is un- 
satisfactory to a great many thoughtful farmers. Such institu- 
tions ought to be self-sustaining, or at least no further aid given. 
Only a very few have derived any benefit from this top-heavy, 
high-salaried, extravagant public institution. If a tuition were 
charged sufficient to make it self-supporting, so that those who 
are benefitted by attending it would pay for what they get, and 
the high salaries regulated so that any further appropriations 
would be unnecessary, we might make a starting-point from this 



98 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

college toward State-wide employment. The way it is now 
managed, just a few are benefitted at the expense of those who 
are compelled by their limited circumstances to provide for the 
education of their children nearer home. 

The Agricultural College professors are apt to run the same 
kind of humbuggery on the taxpayer that the farmers of Kansas 
were fooled with when the chinch-bug inoculation went abroad 
from the K. U. 

Old Uncle Cy. Leland said he disbelieved its utility, long before 
the farmers had to admit that there was nothing in it. If Kansas 
is going to employ a lot of high-salaried men to conduct agri- 
cultural industries, the State should provide land to give practical, 
self-supporting employment to all those who patronize such in- 
stitutions, and let the plants to the professors as a business propo- 
sition on condition that they pay a two- or three-per-cent interest 
on the physical valuation of the plants. 

If Kansas should furnish a young man with a quarter-section 
of land, well improved, on condition that he pay the State a low 
rate of interest on the physical valuation of said land, out of which 
interest the State would supply school facilities, road improve- 
ments, etc., this young man would be a self-supporting, self- 
respecting, independent, self-sustaining citizen. 

But if in addition to this the State should pay him a salary of 
$1,500 a year, or more, like it does the Manhattan managers, for 
a few long-winded contributions to agricultural literature, most 
people would say the State was managed by a set of fools to thus 
allow the young man a salary the equivalent of which in compensa- 
tion was in no way returned to the State. 

No State Agricultural College for experimental purposes needs 
to be one half as large and commodious as the one at Manhattan, 
and in many cases the boys who have had no other chance than the 
common schools have outranked the graduates of that college in all 
the industries. So it is evident that these top-heavy institutions 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 



of Kansas have become a public burden, and they foster a lot of 
salaried men who do not compensate the State or society for the 
worth of their salaries. 

The local public schools are not getting the support they should, 
because of these over-developed State institutions ; over-developed 
because they are not giving the citizens an adequate return for 
the amount of appropriations they are consuming. 

Everything the State does economically, to benefit the whole 
of society, should be encouraged, but helping some at the expense 
of others is a paternalism that must be discontinued. 

If the civilized people of the world would act harmoniously 
on sociology, biology, theology, and ethnology, they could get on a 
basis of government whereby war, with all of its extravagant and 
hideous results, would be abolished; and with our present facil- 
ities of transferring information and products the conditions are 
favorable to have a United Government of the World to settle 
international contentions. 

Everything harmful and oppressive will continue till the legal 
rights of property-holders are limited to where they will not con- 
flict with the right of every person to be employed at a remunera- 
tion sufficient to afford all the comforts and advantages commen- 
surate with modern facilities of production and distribution. 

The enlightenment of this age is propitious for a much better 
civilization than we now have ; but so long as society expends its 
forces in building mansions for the rich and hovels for the poor, 
enabling and encouraging the rich to idle their lives away and 
compelling the poor to suffer and destroy their vitalities by the 
hardships of starvation or exposure to the elements, causing a 
general discouragement which produces crime in all its horrible 
forms ; and so long as society expends so much of its accumulated 
wealth in preparation for defense and possible war, — just so long 
will human misery be unnecessarily prevalent, and happiness be- 



100 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

yond the possibility of being attained permanently in its maximum 
degree for all classes of society. 

The newspaper men of Kansas are generally so loyal to the 
policy of their papers — which policy is to say nothing through the 
papers which will in any manner prevent the largest circulation — 
that public evils get into a popular acceptance by being supported 
by those who are living on the fixed salaries of State and county 
offices : thus it is that the taxpayers do not get properly informed 
in regard to many public institutions. 

Newspapers almost without exception are reflections of what is 
popular with salaried people. This and criminal news they 
generally get before the public without palliation ; but whenever 
anything comes up directly unjust to the taxpayers, anything in 
which more salaries are created, the taxpayers do not get a fair 
presentation ; to these facts I want to make one or two exceptions. 

The Atchison Globe, under the management of Mr. Ed Howe, 
has been fearless and fair. 

The only thing that The Globe leaves its patrons in doubt about 
is the editor's religion ; in this, many believe he is fair too ; they 
say, possibly he has none. However this may be, we all re- 
gretted to hear last week that this most able paragrapher is going 
to retire. There was something about this man's writings that 
made subjects of local import readable and interesting anywhere 
in the United States. This may have been because he was without 
the trouble-making convictions of any special religion. 

The only religion which will be of universal acceptance is the 
religion of being good without a lot of salaried men to tell how 
worship must be conducted. 

Salaries and worship in the civil and religious efforts of men — 
Hero worship in one, and God worship in the other — have been 
serious hindrances in all countries; these hindrances we do not 
seem to know how to avoid. If it were possible to satisfy office- 
holders with glory, and a fixed salary not to exceed $5000 per 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 101 

year for services of the highest offices in the United States, nor to 
receive less than $1000 for the lowest, there would likely be much 
less corruption and scheming in office as well as in elections. 

Our systems, as they now operate, encourage extravagance in 
public life ; so it is a sad reflection we see in the Associated Press ; 
a reflection where scandals in high life, divorces, breach of prom- 
ises, embezzlements, suicides, murder, and elopements; and in 
lower life, we see poverty, disease, crime, cruelty, ignorance, op- 
pression, and robberies; and more yet, we see the natural re- 
sources of the country, the land, the mines, the oil wells, the sugar 
plants, in fact all industries, more or less monopolized by corpo- 
rations or private ownership ; this reflection is too much. I shall 
have to turn away from the Associated Press, the main factor 
in making the people believe we are making wonderful progress 
in civil government; it, the Press, needs further investigation 
in its copyright efforts to maintain prestige over the people. 

The Associated Press has copyrighted all kinds of nicely fin- 
ished, perfectly moral love stories to pacify the young people and 
imbue them with the idea that a condition of bliss is in store for 
them if they remain loyal to the powers which hold the reins of 
government. 

These stories are copyrighted and culled, for book publications, 
and circulated as choice literature to engage the attention of any 
whose thoughts might drift to causes of so much misery and crime 
recorded in the daily papers. 

The policy of the Press is to inform the electors in the politi- 
cal arena what wonderfully capable men those are who aspire to 
be the servants of a people who govern by supreme authority. 
What a travesty on the "land of the free and the home of the 
brave" — riotous and free for the work of the knave who builds 
residences like the Montana Senator, would be nearer right. 

When you buy a house or farm that will rent for $500 a year 
you are really buying the services of a stout, able-bodied man who 



102 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

never gets sick or cold, who never dies ; such a purchase gives you 
more than the average laborer could earn above his expenses. 

Slavery? What else can it be? It is a thousand times better 
than the old-time chattel slavery. You are so eminently re- 
spectable in this deal. 

I thought some of trying to revive my sentimental feeling to- 
ward you, for I am almost sure your courtship with Vina will be 
a failure. When she speaks of you now, she calls you the infidel 
scoffer. Topeka has a scoffer, one of the most brilliant in the 
State ; he is a satellite in the Second Thought department of 
the Daily Capital. Last week Mr. Ed. Howe retired from the 
Atchison Globe. 

In the spring he is going to move to Potato Hill, to show the 
farmers as well as the town people how to fill the declining years 
with happiness. Poor Mr. Howe! I wish I could in some way 
contribute to his comfort — and I can, by leaving him alone. 

Vina thinks your writing would be more readable if the per- 
sonal pronoun, I, were not so prominent. She takes a very con- 
sistent stand in this, I think. She says, even according to your 
doctrine, that we are indebted to thousands of people now in their 
graves, for our mental accomplishments ; and that when we write 
we should say we more and not try to convey the impression that 
"I am the author of all the learning which I display.' ' 

LlNA GONA. 



XIII. 

DASH SANCTIONS THE PUBLICATION. 

To Miss Gona : Your intimation that the thoughts which 
I express may be part of the material for a book, does not in any 
way disconcert me ; in fact, I am rather pleased to know that 
you recognize sufficient force in them to create public concern. 

It is an old theory that one should not endeavor to build up 
by tearing down; there is no virtue in this theory when that 
which is false is in the way of that which is true. " Do unto others 
as ye would have others do unto you :" even this moral precept 
does not hold good when an anti-prohibitionist, with plenty of 
"wet goods," meets another man of the same type and proceeds 
to do unto him as he would like to be done by. In this case both 
may proceed to get beastly drunk by obeying the moral precept. 
Today I met an old friend who offered me a' cigar. I explained 
to him that it was not always best to do unto others as he would 
have others do unto him ; that it often encouraged bad habits ; 
that it all depended on the doer and the doee. He was a man of 
easy persuasion, and readily understood. 

If the Christian religion, or any other, or any number of re- 
ligions, are in the way of building up the most perfect civilization, 
it is the duty of all progressive citizens to investigate, and by all 
peaceable methods remove error and establish truth. To culti- 
vate harmony at the expense of truth may cause violent social 
eruptions. It was preached before the Civil War and is ye1 
preached in a religious way, "obey your masters," but the evil 
was so great that human reason could not harmonize it. 

The evils which are burdensome to society now are more the 
result of ignorance of its individual members, than it is the result 

(103) 



104 - THE PROSY RLMANCE. 

of intentional injustice by those who are conducting the powers of 
the social system. There has been so much attention given — and 
wasted — on religion that the ethical knowledge of how to be good 
and happy has been ineffectual; hence the horrors you behold 
may be permeating to the very vitals of our social compact. 

A religion that teaches that an all-wise, all-powerful, merciful 
God is watching over the human family, is so bewildering to the 
mind of a child when he sees the effect of drouths, earthquakes, 
conflagrations, and destructive storms, that he loses confidence in 
the wisdom of such a ruler for guidance and help ; when he does 
not get help he becomes discouraged and criminally inclined. He 
becomes reckless, selfish, and determined. If he succeeds in any 
vocation he is apt to turn towards his childhood religion and pray 
for power, and does not hesitate to use it in every legal way pos- 
sible; but if he fails to get above the lower vocations, and has 
hardships and privations to contend with, he either becomes a 
meek, servile tool, willing to serve his masters, or he becomes a 
criminal of the most vile known, and does not hesitate to murder, 
rob, steal, and do everything mean, to the extent of his ability. 

Does it not seem if the child had been taught the ethical 
knowledge that mercy and moral courage come direct from society, 
and the unyielding laws of nature, and that the proper and safe 
thing to do is to conform to the ethical guidance, and be prosperous 
in proportion to the ability he can command and extend? 

The only safe place to act is within one's own reason, in the 
acquisition of all that it takes to make us useful and happy ; and 
to wander away from the good we find in our own reason, in an 
endeavor to connect with a personal God, is a species of mysticism 
that has been harmful to many a wavering child. 

That was a good point, ; n Vina's favor too, which she made 
concerning the pronoun, I. None of us are inclined to give the 
past ages the credit we should for the achievements we now enjoy ; 
so after this I shall say we. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 105 

When sociology develops to that point of perfection wherein 
each individual realizes that he is dependent morally, physically 
and mentally, and that he cannot fill his mission nor attain the 
greatest happiness and contentment till he contributes his share, 
then there is a possibility of attaining a social system in which 
more harmony will prevail ; then a code of ethical morals accept- 
able to all peoples would establish universal peace among men. 
Such a condition has been the earnest desire of the best men for 
many ages; and this may be cherished and cultivated until we 
will have been successful. 

Evolution has given us more encouragement for such a social 
development than all the religions; its laws seem to be tenable 
throughout all creation. 

The gradual advance from a rudimentary condition to a higher, 
more complex, and a more perfect form is as evident in the soci- 
ology of this age as it is evident in plant development and life 
development of the lower forms of animals. 

In the science of evolution we have a basic principle to prove 
the stability of such a development without any form of worship 
or religion. 

H. W. Dresser, in his " Power of Silence," comes nearest har- 
monizing evolution with religion. His platitudes are so skillfully 
applied that the unsophisticated men of God will accept it as a 
proof that they ought to continue to pray and worship God on 
bended knee, or in the more modern style, stand up, close the 
eyes, and use a pious tone. 

Dresser says, "evolution would have no ultimate meaning if it 
did not prove the presence of God." 

The man to whom we are indebted for the science and those 
who explain its principles do not acknowledge the presence of God. 
The truth is the presence which they establish. 

Such platitudes as these: "Life is immanent : God is mani- 
fested in all life ; God is life ; life is God. There is no place where 



106 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

God is not ; wherever there is life there is God." According to 
these assertions, God must be in a snake, and a snake must be in 
God, for a snake surely has life. God must be in the penitentiaries, 
the asylums, the jails; He must be in the robbers, the murderers, 
the thieves, — for there is certainly life in all these. 

We are hopeful that truth will be triumphant. We know that 
good and bad have opposite meanings ; and that nature does not 
need a God to oversee her laws. The word God has always been a 
source of bewilderment. We never know where He is, where He 
is not, and all his deeds have been sources of contention. 

Mrs. Eddy, the most wonderful woman of her age, in point of 
success in sustaining Christianity in its last struggles against 
science, says "God is Love." Then she soars : "Time may com- 
mence, but it cannot complete the new birth, eternity does this ; 
for progress is the law of Infinity. Only through the sore travail 
of mortal mind shall soul, or sense, be satisfied, and man awake in 
His likeness. What a faith-lighted thought is this : that mortals 
can lay off the ' old man ' until man is found to be the image of the 
Infinite Good, which we call God." She wrote pages and pages 
of this kind of inspiration, believing it to be a new dispensation of 
the divine law in complete harmony with science. Take her work 
as a whole, and it is about as lucid as this : that which is not, is 
not exactly the same as that which was, but that which was is 
nearer right than that which has been, though that which has 
been was the beginning of that which will be perfectly evident to 
all the deep recesses of the Divine Science. Until such meaning- 
less flights of fancy, written for the purpose of bewildering those 
who have not confidence enough in themselves to do their own 
thinking, is discarded in the progress of sociology, there will be 
that ease-loving element, the preachers and the priests, to support ; 
these, with all the burdensome begging foreign missions and 
churches, together with the Y. M. C. A.'s, are hindering sociology 
more than anything else except liquor and tobacco. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 107 

Every person has some fear attached to his dependence. He 
has not the intrepid moral courage to proclaim his judgment in 
the face of those who are upholding dogmas which have been, and 
are yet, with the majority, popular even when science sustains 
him in every analysis. It is so hard to question our beliefs which 
were established by our school-books and indorsed by our parents. 

Sometimes fear is so dominant that we cling to our prejudices 
when there are no logical reasons for doing so ; this is because 
social ostracism has been served to many who dared to doubt an 
established religion. The discoverer of a fraud practiced on a 
credulous public would rather be a quiet observer than create 
the enmity of those upon whom the fraud is practiced ; thus we 
sit quiet in legislative assemblies while a chaplain talks to God. 
Most of us are of the opinion that such talks are as foolish and 
ineffectual as the heathen praying to his wooden god, but none 
of us feel like sacrificing our social positions by exposing or even 
intimating that the chaplain does not earn his salary. 

However, there is much evidence in course of accumulation, 
that chaplains, preachers and priests work these frauds on a 
dollar basis. Christian civilization exposes its absurdities when 
two powers declare war, and both pray to the same God for guid- 
ance ; so the evolution of sociology yet has all marks of a cruel, 
selfish religion, while the individual members are striving for a 
growth, a development, which will discontinue everything except 
that which is known to be good and beneficial to all, — just simply 
good, without any high-salaried men to tell why it is good. 

In the civil laws sociology has a support more permanent 
than ever before, because religion has been so far supplanted by 
science that men take little interest in preaching ; and they also 
take less interest in what is said in opposition to it. We have to 
endure certain beliefs much the same as we do our physical de- 
fects. We inherited them, and till we can evolute out of these 
beliefs as a whole compact (for keep in mind, society is one thing 



108 TEE PROSY ROMANCE. 

in course of development and has not attained anything like a 
full development), we must endure them because some of our 
fellows cannot see how utterly useless and false they are. 

There are times in every matured person's life when the clouds 
of despondency cluster so closely around that he would gladly 
go into oblivion except that pain, fear and suffering make a barrier 
too great for his courage; thus it is that the dread of suffering 
makes us take new courage to strive for pleasure and happiness. 
We come now to realize how essential the discordant things are 
in the economy of evolution. 

Step by step we are able to convince ourselves that there is 
mind-power sufficient to elevate us to a higher development ; and 
to cultivate this mind-power, we compare human life with the 
creeping, crawling life of reptiles and beasts. This comparison 
convinces us that we must depend on science; so psychology, 
when we come to understand its uses and powers, is vastly more 
beneficial than religion and the debasing worship which is humili- 
ating because of the sycophantic procedure in teaching that we 
are low, vile sinners, born of evil and unworthy of the Blessed 
Master. 

The man who follows his ethical resources does not feel in- 
ferior, from a moral point of view, to any being who ever lived ; 
he may feel inferior in mental capacity, but not in moral worth, 
except as he inherits the degrading effects of a superstitious re- 
ligion. 

To be able to shift your thoughts from a physical burden, 
to some mental activity which requires deep, earnest discern- 
ment, you acquire and strengthen the mental equilibrium which 
psychology offers to serve humanity in the place of religious zeal. 
This mind-power is the power behind the throne of sociology. 

This mind-power is so highly attenuated in self-consciousness, 
and so permeating in its application to matter and ethereal sub- 
stance, that it responds to human desires and needs, all the self- 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 109 

help which gives us energy and discernment from the cradle to 
the grave. Nature gives it. Nature takes it. The rudiments 
of mind-power are also the rudiments in cellular diversity through 
all forms of life. Nature is the great Reality; and God is only 
an invention of a mystical age, and this invention still serves 
the purpose among learned men to make a display. This inven- 
tion does not, and never did, respond to the call of man ; all that 
men believed to have come from this source came from Nature, 
not as a result of the call, but as the result of the call being in the 
way of her laws. 

The prayers of a man to God are as futile as the most menial 
fib. All man's trials and achievements are with nature. The 
old mystic invention, God, was the result of a pitiful ignorance. 
Evolution was never dreamed of in those days. Spiritual Power 
is another misnomer, the origin of which belongs to the God in- 
vention ; the mind-power includes everything there is of it, with 
all the befogged mysticism excluded. 

We have learned that we can live good, useful, moral lives, 
without the "spiritual guidance" and God-worship which are 
the assets by which a lot of useless idlers live. 

Psychology, in its modern application to disease and distress, 
has ^prayer and "spiritual guidance" exposed to the light of 
science so completely that we marvel at the stupidity of those 
who can be so credulous as to believe in these old, time-worn con- 
trivances. 

The restorative power in the physical evolutionary phenomena 
which the Christian Scientist mistakes for "divine healing," is 
doing everything that can be done without the depressing burden 
of prayer. Each successive age gives us a better understanding 
of how to be good without God, that nonenity which has been 
used so long to mystify the laws of Nature. The real Creator 
of the Universe is Nature and her laws, a feminine personification 
to accommodate some whodislike to give up the defunct god idea. 



110 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

What we learn by experience transcends every other kind of 
knowledge; and those of us who have learned that prayer and 
worship have consumed enough time to have developed sociology 
and psychology to a point of perfection worthy of the scientific 
discoveries of this age, are now impatient for progress. 

The opinion we get from experience through psychology, leads 
us out of those phenomenal mysteries which Spiritualists have 
mistaken for departed souls, nonenities. However, these are 
ridiculed by Christians, generally, as being fakes, because churches 
and preachers are not necessary to establish a following. 

Any subject over which the mind becomes enthused, tends to 
become intensified in proportion to attention given it, and some 
minds, very susceptible to excitement, create a circulation of 
thought-power which creates delusions among those not well 
poised ; and even among the most perfectly poised there are im- 
pressions of phenomena similar to the agitation between wireless 
telegraphic instruments; but there is nothing supernatural or 
divine about it. 

No doubt there is a curative influence created in the imagina- 
tion, but this curative influence will not do the work of physic, 
nor be safe to depend upon in malignant diseases ; it is Nature's 
first effort to help recover, and those who depend wholly on it are 
mentally out of balance. 

The sensuous, the sagacious and sensual comprise all the 
various kinds of human beings. 

Those in whom the sensuous proclivities predominate get 
most of their pleasure from seeing, hearing, and knowing. They 
are easily influenced and often make good scholars, but they are 
not the influential in times of great stress. 

The sagacious are those who have the sensuous and the sensual 
proclivities in equal proportions ; they are not easily disturbed, nor 
do they become greatly moved by music or scenery. Their 
pleasures come from executive sources as managers of great enter- 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. Ill 

prises and legislative assemblies ; they are at the front in all the 
great movements. 

Those who are sensual to a dominant degree care more for the 
pleasures of taste, and the carnal proclivities lead them into crime ; 
they get more pleasure from the muscles than they do from the 
mind; evolution has not done any more for these, in point of 
morality, than it has done for the lower animals. Most criminals 
belong to this class, and sociology has not yet learned how to deal 
with them. They often become deeply religious, after they have 
led a life of crime ; and, being ignorant, they honestly accept the 
god idea of making amends through repentance and prayer. 

Through heredity this class of beings occupied the thrones, and 
humanity has not entirely recovered from the bad influences. It 
is hard to appeal to this class of beings, for their minds are prej- 
udiced in favor of the Bible, kings, priests and preachers. 

Whenever they get into power they find so much precedent 
to refer to, that they become tyrants in their homes, as well as in 
public capacities. They are the people who believe in war, and 
pray for victory in his blessed name. They are not modern and 
progressive. 

Another fake, false as false can be, is the divine dispensation of 
Providence, which has hindered the progress of human intelligence 
for thousands of years. It is written by a preacher that in April, 
1865, God, by divine providence, called Lincoln from this earth. 
If this be the truth, then this same God was operating with Booth, 
when he shot the President. If any low-lived criminal should 
shoot our Governor, there are a host of those pastors who would 
claim that it was the will of God, divine providence, being ful- 
filled. Such preachers are just a grade above the religious crank 
who claims it is the fulfilling of a divine dispensation that (.'ailed 
for the murder of President McKinley. 

In the awful conflagration like the burning of Chicago and San 
Francisco, these same mystical, illogical freaks say God willed it. 



112 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

The unchangeable laws of nature do everything, and God does 
nothing. There is no such thing as a God, if we except the wooden 
and metallic gods created by the superstitious worshipers. 

In view of the fact that churches are a burden upon society 
and hinder progression, we need some legislation to counteract 
this burden ; the repeal of the old law which exempts church prop- 
erty from taxation, would be in the line of progress. In every 
city of any size there are large churches which represent thousands 
of dollars invested ; they should be taxed the same as other prop- 
erty ; and the chaplains ought to be excluded from our legislative 
assemblies and military organizations. Their influence with God 
is a travesty on good sense. They have wasted enough energy 
in the foolish God business to have relieved society of the evils 
of tobacco and liquor, both of which are only a little more burden- 
some than the churches. 

The "So help me God" clause in the courts of justice should 
be supplanted with "So help me truth and honesty." 

In the oath of office and everywhere the God-idea should have 
the good idea of truth, honesty and good service take its place. 
It is obsolete, considered as sense, and has no more force from a 
progressive point of view than "So help me Satan" would have. 
God and Satan — two fakes, two nonenities, nowhere of any use, 
and everywhere hindering the ignorant and vicious from being as 
good as they would be if science and ethical morality were given 
the same amount of study, support, and attention. 

Morality based on ethics, instead of on hell, heaven, God and 
the Devil, and taught in our common schools as a hygienic and 
moral necessity, would create a capacity for doing good and being 
good, that would enable sociology to rank with chemistry and 
electricity. 

Sociology is no further advanced, except as the other sciences 
have helped it, than it was one hundred years ago. Crime, super- 
stition, poverty and affluence leave their cancerous scars on the 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 113 

history we are making today, that makes the past ages so horrible 
to contemplate, — all because religion has kept humanity, except 
a few scientists, enshrouded in a moldy, mystical, god-ridden 
superstition. We need the light of science and the force of rea- 
son, and human minds unclouded with God and the Devil. 

We have outlived the witch idea, but God and the Devil be- 
long to the same family of fakes. The Devil is awfully sick; 
he is no longer susceptible to absent treatment, but God, the 
falsest fake of all fakes, still survives. The salaries and annui- 
ties of 100,000 preachers are too important from a business stand- 
point to allow the God fake to perish. These 100,000 men who 
like to be called divines are now (January 25th, 1911) assembled 
in Washington, D. C., to diagnose this thing, which exists every- 
where and yet nowhere. 

This assemblage of professional soul-savers claim that they 
represent 16,000,000 communicants in various parts of the United 
States ; to these it is very essential that God be not allowed to 
follow Satan and the witches into innocuous desuetude ; and with 
this same purpose in view the Kansas Legislature through the 
influence of a " patella statesman" is now considering the passage 
of a bill to prohibit baseball games on Sunday. According to 
Christian Scientists and other palliaters, God exists in a ball 
game. So it seems there is so much of him in places of amuse- 
ment that the churches do not get enough of his benign pres- 
ence. This big assemblage of ministers at Washington probably 
contemplate some kind of concentration by which he will be a 
little more ubiquitous ; no doubt their professions are so much 
in jeopardy that a little legislation would be more effectual than 
prayer. 

The Salvation Army mix their prayers so much with tam- 
bourine racket and vagrancy, that God does not have a fair show- 
to keep himself attenuated enough to serve the places in juxtapo- 



114 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

sition. Any God needs help from some source, and he seems to 
be more in need of it on Sunday than on any other day. 

The Sabbath, according to Webster, is a day of rest ; and by 
modern usage it has also become a day of recreation and pleas- 
ure, and is better known as Sunday. It would seem from this 
that God, being very old, should be exempt from attending to the 
soul business on Sunday, especially when the people pay 100,000 
clerks very fair wages, considering that they do business in the 
churches only one day each week, and so few attend. 

There is a bill before the Legislature now to prohibit the game 
of baseball on Sunday ; this is only a fatal struggle to get the God- 
idea supported by civil law. In the daily papers we notice how 
vainly some of the preachers try to exhort in favor of this because 
their jobs in the God-business of saving souls is on the decline. 
The bill not only tries to prevent the game of baseball, but it 
would prevent every kind of amusement on Sunday, so that the 
churches could have a better attendance. About the only rea- 
son educated young men attend the churches is to be in the com- 
pany with young women, and hear the music. They care noth- 
ing for the prayers and the sermons. There is no better idea of 
" nothing much to think about" than a Sunday sermon, unless 
it contains something modern, or on a social, scientific, or political 
subject. The Bible is so contradictory and so full of absurdities 
that it no longer gets serious consideration by the more enlight- 
ened class of thinkers. All works of nature move along the same 
on Sunday as any other day of the week ; and this proves that 
this passage "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" was 
invented by some old priest or preacher who saw a chance to give 
the soul-saving business of God, Holy Ghost & Co. a permanent 
hold on the credulous ignorant people ; but that dark day of 
ignorance and superstition has passed. Truth will prevail in 
spite of organized God forces; and the sooner we get the word 
God out of every book of civil government and get such words 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 115 

as truth, justice, goodness, and the laws of nature to take the 
various places which the word God now occupies, the better and 
more peaceable we will be. There is nothing much more disgust- 
ing to an advanced thinker than a chaplain's prayer in a legis- 
lative assemblage. 

The Topeka Daily Capital reports a sermon delivered in the 
Novelty Theatre, Sunday, January 29, 1911, in which the emi- 
nent (?) divine asserts that all men believe in the Bible and Jesus 
Christ. Now he either told a willful lie, or else he is too ignorant 
to know the truth ; and one is about as excusable as the other, 
especially in a man who assumes to instruct the people on morals. 

The preachers who preach in theaters on Sunday have a much 
better chance of getting an audience than those who preach in 
the churches. Out of curiosity people go to hear a preacher in a 
theater, but if the preachers get to telling such monstrous " whop- 
pers" it will not be long till they, the people, will go off to the Sun- 
day baseball game or to the parks, to enjoy their Sunday recre- 
ation. Using Sunday as a day of recreation is a nice, sensible 
custom, but to try to make it compulsory, in order to make people 
go to church, is a kind of tyranny that tolerant citizens will not 
sanction. As for desecrating the Sabbath, even from a Christian 
standpoint, telling a falsehood seems about as complete a way as 
is known. This falsifying should desecrate any day of the week. 
By mistake, however, the entire sentence was not quoted : u Every 
man in this age believes in Jesus Christ and the Bible, and he 
should profess it before men. It is worth while to follow Jesus 
Christ, who is the greatest leader of the world today." 

This is untrue from start to finish. The scientist is the great- 
est leader. He establishes the governments and equips them. 
The civil laws made and propounded by the economic thinker 
lead the governments of the world. Christ and the Bible do not 
lead or move anything. The only propelling power to operate 
Christ and the Bible with, is prayers, and it won't move a moun- 



116 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

tain, a steamship, a railroad company, or anything. It won't 
even move a wheelbarrow. There is nothing so futile as prayer ; 
and those who indulge in it belittle themselves in the estimation 
of scientists and finally degrade themselves in their own esti- 
mation, believing themselves to be low and vile sinners. Only 
the foolish practice it. 

Theatrical entertainment has almost superseded church en- 
tertainment. The moral lessons of our best dramas teach the 
young people the right course, and they teach it in such a way that 
it becomes more impressive than anything in the line of worship, 
in such a way that self-respect is increased instead of diminished. 

Comedies appeal to us as sentient beings. Church sermons 
appeal to us as low, vile sinners, incapable of doing right only by 
confession and continual support of the church. 

According to the creeds, no one can be free from sin, if he does 
not support a church. According to ethics, every one who lives 
an honest, conscientious life, and does not in any way interfere 
with the rights of his fellow-beings, is free from sin. Sin is a 
misnomer. 

Confession is the foundation of church support; you cannot 
do entirely right, unless you remunerate the church or the preacher 
for doing wrong ; this is the creed-bound doctrine. But according 
to ethics when you do wrong you must change your course and 
make amends to society or yourself to get right again. A man who 
lives right according to ethics, has no use for a God ; he looks to 
nature for a guide. 

Since Miss Vintage returned from Topeka, she has treated me 
shamefully. She snubs me in public, refuses to ride with me. 
She returned my books with " Thank you ; I do not intend to read 
such trash;" and lately she sent a note in which she says: "I 
would rather have nothing more to do with you, and hereby dis- 
miss you ; and hope you will soon see the evil toward which you 
are tending." While this seems bad, there is yet something 



THE PROSY ROMANCE, 117 

worse; she has become attached to a young preacher; we'll 
call him Joseph, because he seems to be a Joseph kind of a man, 
and lately he left the country between two days, and left several 
bills unpaid ; and it is so rumored that Jesus Christ will have some 
half-brothers, or maybe sisters in this neighborhood. Now this 
will grieve you and perhaps disgrace you in the eyes of some, but 
it never shall in my estimation. We are all creatures of cir- 
cumstances ; and if influences and teachings over which we have 
no control lead any of us into doing anything indiscreet, things 
for which we are condemned by society, it remains our duty to 
live so nobly that we shall overbalance our mistakes in the opinions 
of our associates. Good sense is worth more to a woman than 
any kind of religion. A woman's morals, and her usefulness, too, 
depend more on her good sense than on her religion. By tracing 
crime to its source we may learn how to combat it. What would 
be thought of a man, supposing he could manage the phenomena of 
rain, who would cause it to rain forty days and nights and drown 
all the people on the face of the earth? 

There is nothing in the history of crime equal to this, yet some 
people pretend to believe this, and worship the being whom they 
suppose did it. 

There is little chance for the suppression of crime as long as 
people worship criminals. 

A divine dispensation of providence like the Christians say 
Noah's flood was, is enough to stupefy the morality of all those 
who try to believe it. It is no wonder that we do not advance to a 
condition of universal peace and plenty while we continue to be- 
lieve in a spiritual being who would set such an example. The 
innate good in man with the aid given by science has enabled 
him to build the present civilization, and the bigoted Christian 
tries to make it appear that Christianity did it. It was done in 
spite of Christianity, and not because of it. 

The most discouraging things we have to deal with now, in 



118 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

order to keep civilization from going back to a condition of the 
Dark Ages, is Christianity and spiritualism. These superstitious 
mysticisms haunt the mind of the child before he gains his reason, 
because he is taught to believe in such things every time he goes 
where prayers are delivered. 

The most progressive men of the last century were Thomas 
Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, 
and Edison. Such as these (and there are thousands of others, 
just as sensible, though not so prominent) we may thank for the 
happiness and freedom we now enjoy. 

Until every man acts upon his own resources as these men did, 
and not depend on preachers and priests, our condition, socially 
politically and economically, will not advance. 

Dash Blank. 



XIV. 
THE OLD MAID'S RELIGION BECOMES ELASTIC. 

January 15, 1911. 

Mr. Blank : We are nearing each other in our conclusions. 
Reading the same papers and the same books has a wonderful 
influence in harmonizing the differences which estrange individuals. 
I notice such an improvement in your correspondence since you 
dropped the pronoun I. The Legislature is now grilling and 
grumbling and grading. Everything from patellas to pates is 
under the surveillance of the loquacious legislator. He is egregious 
in his egoism, and gracious in his credulity. 

His approbations are ready for most any kind of appropria- 
tions ; in fact, he is an expert on appropriations as well as a tough 
proposition. It must not be inferred that he is ignorant, neither 
must it be inferred that he is wise ; for he is multiform. On the 
20th inst. he had a chance to do his sister and mother a favor by 
adopting the next meeting to consider the suffrage legislation, 
and dispose of this much-needed and much-neglected cause ; but 
he felt so important over his party platform duties, he discovered a 
ruse by which he could act upon this proposition in connection 
with something else which would require an amendment to defeat 
the woman's cause. 

If he paid less attention to patellas, and parliamentary flip- 
pancy, and more attention to common decency and common sense, 
there would be a better chance for him to earn his beggarly three 
dollars per day. 

He has about three attendants at two dollars per day, so he 
costs the State about nine dollars per day, and there are so many of 
his highness that about fifteen hundred dollars per day is the 

(119) 



120 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

modest little sum he considers himself worth. Some may have 
erroneous ideas of how he can make use of so many attendants 
(servants). It must be remembered that his requirements are 
various, for he is no ordinary individual. In addition to sending 
to the State Library for reference books, his spittoon and cigar 
accomplishments are complexly complicated, and require much 
attention; and the waste-basket by his desk must be attended 
to every few minutes, for his correspondence and solicitations 
from his constituency must not be neglected. Then again, be- 
cause of the great mental strain his cutaneous welfare is very im- 
portant, and the cuticle must not be allowed to expand from uneven 
temperatures, and to adjust things satisfactorily he needs ventila- 
tion experts, two to each man, — one to keep the temperature high 
enough and another to keep it low enough. He should have a 
medical expert, too, to examine his pulse after each thrilling ora- 
tion. 

The voter can never understand what a sacrifice the legislator 
makes in serving his constituents. The legislator is outdone in his 
generosity only by one modern philanthropist — the Good Fellow. 
Take either of them individually and there are some very good 
specimens of manhood — honorable, conscientious, intellectual, and 
willing as well as anxious to do good ; but it seems these kinds are 
in the minority. 

The Good Fellow is more anxious to make liberal gifts at 
Christmas-time than he is to remove the cause which makes the 
poor and miserable so dependent upon his gifts ; and he takes 
more pride in his generosity than he takes interest in the conditions 
which make poverty tributary to affluence. He thinks display 
advertisements and selling goods at 50 per cent, profit, both of 
which the ignorant consumer is inveigled to pay for, are creditable 
business opportunities. These opportunities make him rich, and 
the laboring consumer poor; but he makes the poor fellows' 
children happy on Christmas, one day out of three hundred and 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 121 

sixty-five. The three hundred and sixty-four days he uses in 
exploiting the poor by collecting interest, profits, and rents, in 
order to be real generous one day in each year. 

He also delights in using his surplus to buy real estate, and 
erect houses thereon, and sell them on the installment plan to the 
laborer, making 50 per cent, on the transaction; and at Christ- 
mastide there is so much installment money to be raised that the 
laboring consumer is again humiliated by a gift, amounting pos- 
sibly to one-fourth of one per cent, of the trifling profit of 50 per 
cent, on the installment deal. 

This Good Fellow has many schemes to build up the industries 
of his city. Various kinds of bonds must be issued to do public 
works, for he has much money ready for investment. He can 
purchase these bonds and get an annual income of 6 per cent on 
the cost of every public improvement ; he is a financier. 

A financier is one who can manipulate the building of a city 
in such a way that he can keep the manual laborers all poor, and 
himself rich. He is seldom a legislator; he is most always a 
lobbyist. He is the indirect cause of all the poorly clothed and 
poorly fed children with whom he is so generous one day in each 
year. 

He is an optimist, and frowns on anyone who is not cheerful 
and contented, and Mr. Blank, he is not always a church member, 
either, but he is most always a shrewd politician. It is to his 
interest to get the city in debt to him, for he hopes to retire as 
soon as he can get everything in sight covered with mortgages and 
bonds which are a thousand times more productive and less trouble 
than chattel slaves, and they never die ; they mature. But if the 
mass of the people are kept poor enough, it only takes a few strokes 
of the pen to get them refunded. 

The legislator and the Good Fellow are against this sentiment 
of progression: "The war to wrest from monopoly the resources 
that belong to all the people, will never stop." — Gifford Pinchot. 



122 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

The legislators and the Good Fellows up to date, Jan. 25, 1911, are 
trying to prevent any such war from starting. They would rather 
palliate the hardships of the poor laborers with Christmas presents. 

We need progressive progression which will not make it nec- 
cessary for the provider of a family to die before a home is provided 
for his children, — a home which actually belongs to the family 
bought with life-insurance money. Of all the monstrous crimes 
upon the business credulity of business men, life insurance is the 
greatest. It would be useless to deny that there are cases which 
indicate that families are benefitted by money from a father's, 
mother's, or wife's life insurance ; notwithstanding, the basic 
principle with all its crime-producing tendencies, is germain to a 
cankerous growth on the morality and permanent welfare of the 
people. 

Let us consider a life-insurance company and all its patrons as 
a community, entirely away from the rest of humanity on a large 
island, with all modern equipments of civilization. On this life- 
insured island we will consider all the industries in a prosperous 
condition, but subject to the usual drawbacks, with which the best 
State in our Union has to contend. To get at the evil we must 
allow that every child as well as every adult has its life insured, 
and policies all paid promptly. For the illustration to be easily 
understood, we will reckon the policies at $1000 each ; (the reckon- 
ing of course would be the same in actuality whether the policies 
were $1000 or $10,000.) Now all these persons have got to die 
sometime ; so one thousand dollars will have to be paid after the 
death of every patron. Now the expenses of conducting this in- 
surance business : Salaries of the officials, commission of solicitors, 
clerks, office buildings, furniture stationery, — we are making the 
estimate supposing that there will be no lawyers and lawsuits, all 
of which cost an enormous amount of money. The sources of in- 
come for the company come entirely from the patrons. Now can 
any sane person believe that the company can pay back more than 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 123 

is paid in, and defray all expenses connected with the business? 
You see it is a losing proposition if everybody keeps his payments 
made according to his policy agreements, and it is only because 
some fail and cannot make their payments and their policies be- 
come annulled. So it is plain that whatever money there is to 
pay losses, comes by the misfortune of the poor fellows who lost 
their money. Thus it is that we hear so much about the wonderful 
beneficiary organizations, modern brotherhoods, all the profits of 
which come from the hardships of those who lost. 

It is demoralizing to society to uphold an institution which 
pays money to some of its patrons, by the loss of other patrons. 
"But stop! Look here, you female fiend : you are not giving us a 
fair deal. You ought to be jailed for misrepresenting us! Let 
a life-insurance man explain how we do these legerdemain feats 
of finance. 

"It's like this: money has a productive capacity of 6 per 
cent per annum by law. Granted legal by State enactment, and 
a good deal more where we can work in a commission from the 
borrower. You see we men who live in the cities, who take 
daily baths, and smoke fine 10c. cigars, and go to theaters, and 
ride in automobiles, have our perceptions quickened, so that we 
get into the intricacies of finance ; and we can make investments 
whereby a dollar doubles itself in a very few years. Of course 
some of the farmers and laborers lose on their policy requirements, 
but those would not know how to make skillful investments and 
would lose their money anyhow if they should start a business of 
their own ; so we might as well have their savings as somebody 
else, for we can pay it to the widows and children of those of us 
who do keep up our payments. 

"But it is our skill in making money repeat itself which enables 
us to keep the funds of our company replenished. The ordinary 
policy-holder has no business ability; he does not know how to 
take advantage of his fellow-man in a legal way, and besides he 



124 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

often has scruples which interfere with his peace of mind; so 
he prefers to delegate this skillful investment process to us (a 
company which is not bothered with compunctions). We have 
trained men to do this scrubby work. True, we do not produce 
anything to eat or wear, or things that in any way contribute to 
the material or mental welfare of mankind, all of which could be 
sold to raise money; but we get the money all the same." 

Yes, they get the money, and a minority of the policy-holders 
get some benefit, and the majority get left, — or "get robbed" 
would be more appropriate — legally, of course. 

Now and then a policy-holder kills a wife, a husband, a daugh- 
ter, a son, a father, or mother, because their death would relieve 
their circumstances ; and occasionally a man or woman commits 
suicide because they believe they would be worth more dead than 
alive. True, some companies provide against this, and keep the 
amount of the policy. 

These life-insurance companies are good things for the men 
who run them, and they make it appear very decent to maintain 
them, but they are entirely bad ; there is not a good feature about 
them. They produce nothing but corruption; they take from 
the unfortunate and give to the fortunate; they maintain a lot 
of browbeating solicitors; they encourage murders, homicides, 
and suicides ; they are a disgrace to our social system, and should 
be driven from our State. 

If our State officials are as wise as they ought to be, and are 
really in earnest about protecting the citizens of Kansas from the 
blackest, most corrupting, debasing frauds of these times, they will 
drive every life-insurance company from the State, after attach- 
ing their funds and applying them pro rata to the policy-holders. 
Just a little radical regulation is needed. 

The monthly and weekly publications purporting to be in the 
interest of policy-holders contain the names of all those who 
have been beneficiaries, but there is little or nothing said about 



THE PROSY ROMANCE, 125 

those who have kept up payments for years, and then, after some 
misfortune has overtaken them, have to lose all their savings 
with which the beneficiaries are paid. 

Since we have a postal savings bank, which makes your de- 
posits absolutely safe, would it not be more humane and a good 
deal safer to deposit your money and manage the investment, even 
at the low rate of interest allowed, than to become a member of 
some endowment company, and run the risk of losing it all ; be- 
sides not being a party to the iniquitous support of a life insur- 
ance company? A question like this, many will say, is not worthy 
of a serious consideration, so far as reflecting on the good of an 
insurance is concerned. Nevertheless, a great many who take 
out policies lose all they have saved for years, and the more there 
are who lose, the more profitable it is to the officers of the com- 
pany ; for then they can show better annual statements and de- 
mand larger salaries. Their great business capacity is based on 
the hardships, losses, and general wrecks of those who are un- 
fortunate. 

Shame on an institution whose prosperity is based on the 
ruin of hard-working, industrious people! How can those who 
have matured policies enjoy the money taken from those who can- 
not keep up their payments? The office-holders and solicitors 
would be benefitted, and all the rest would lose just to the extent 
that these officials would win, for the company produces nothing 
of material worth to mankind. 

They are a burden on society, and just as vicious as the lot- 
teries which were suppressed a few years ago. They have been 
advertised in the most glowing language as beneficial to those 
who lost a husband or wife ; but they keep no account, nor do 
they tell how many husbands and wives and orphan children have 
suffered losses which made the gains for those who were benefitted. 

Poor, stupid, depressed, ignorant people, how shamefully you 
have let these knaves impose upon yon! Better, far better, it 



126 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

would be to place your money in a postal savings bank and get 
a low rate of interest on it than turn it over at such great risks 
to these knaves. You and your children could then get it back 
when you needed it, and you would not be tempted to take each 
other's lives for the sake of gain; so it is evident if we have a 
progressive progression, we will soon be driving these demoral- 
izing knaves, life-insurance agents, from our State. 

Denouncing the Bible and the Christian religion in general, as 
you are doing publicly and privately, only creates animosity, and 
keeps the people divided on questions of great importance ; so let 
each religion take care of itself ; there is no necessity for legis- 
lation one way or the other. Every time a dogmatist tries to 
force a bill through a legislative assembly for the purpose of 
giving favor to a special religion, all other religions are endangered 
if they differ essentially. 

Being good according to ethics might do in a community 
where ethics were understood. Regulations and rules, however, 
which the civil laws aim to maintain, have given us a foundation 
for better development than was known in past ages, but if the 
various religions have a good moral effect on the communicants, 
even though they do hinder enlightenment as you claim, by all 
means let them alone. All history shows that to attack a religion 
makes trouble. 

The most interesting lecture which I have had the pleasure of 
attending since I came to Topeka, was delivered at 418 Kansas 
avenue, Sunday, January 29, 1911. The most impressive part 
about this lecture was, the investigation the lecturer had made of 
a shoe factory in St. Louis. He said this factory was so complete 
in management, machinery and equipment, that it turned out a 
finished product of twelve pairs of shoes for each person connected 
with its operation every day. He did not give the number of 
persons it took to operate the factory ; but he said four pairs from 
each of the twelve pairs of shoes paid for the operating expenses, 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 127 

including all wages, raw material, 6 per cent, interest on plant, 
taxes, heat, light, insurance, and everything whatsoever connected 
with the expense of management. 

He said that eight pairs from each of the twelve pairs went to 
the stockholder of the plant, none of whom had anything to do 
with the management of the plant. To make it plainer, he said 
each worker's labor yielded eight pairs of shoes for a clear profit 
every day of the year. 

This does not seem possible. Most industries do well if they 
yield a 6 per cent, interest on the capital invested, and the idea of 
getting two-thirds of the finished product besides the usual 6 
per cent seems too outrageously unjust to believe ; so I have con- 
cluded that there was an awful exaggeration, or an awful mistake. 
He seemed earnest and honest in all his delineations. He after- 
ward told how all these workers had to scrimp and save, in order 
to get enough to eat and wear, and no wonder if his statements 
were true. If any such condition exists in the manufacturing in- 
dustries, the socialists are right in proclaiming that there should 
be no private or corporate ownerships. For earnestness and clear- 
ness I never heard a better lecture. Private and corporate owner- 
ship, properly regulated by law, seems more economical, and more 
apt to give the best incentive for action and close observation. 
The manager of the shoe factory, for instance, knowing that his 
job could not be retained except care and economy be practiced, 
would do his best; but any such profit should not be allowed. 
The law of the land should see that the workers get everything 
above 6 per cent interest on the physical valuation of the plant 
after expenses of operation, raw material, etc., are adjusted. 

Socialism seeks to make the live, worthy people of so much use 
to society that society cannot afford to neglect them, especially 
in the interest of capital. Socialism does not believe in paying a 
bounty on the dead, as our present system does, inducing people 
to kill one another in order to bring some money into the family. 



128 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

Under present conditions there may be some good in the mutual 
life-insurance companies ; in which assessments are made to pay 
for the dead, but an unworthy, cruel, scheming, grafting member 
gets paid according to the dollars he can command. 

This brotherly love is based on cash, and it is a reflection on 
our economic system that so many good people patronize it be- 
cause they see no other way of making any provision for those 
they love. 

The Good Fellows who sell patent medicines, prepared foods 
and other nostrums, need some attention. There are some pro- 
ducts, widely advertised, which are worthy, but taken as a whole, 
there is a lot of graft and humbuggery to contend with. Some 
firms which manufacture prepared breakfast foods spend more in 
advertising them than they do for the grains out of which these 
products are made, and the consumers not only pay for this ad- 
vertising, but in some cases pay a seventy-five per cent, profit 
besides to the manufacturer, and then twenty-five per cent, profit 
to the local dealer. Good sound corn usually costs one dollar per 
hundred pounds, and the products manufactured therefrom retail 
at five dollars per one hundred pounds. Whether or not these big 
firms are in a combine to regulate prices, does not matter; no 
doubt it is tacitly understood by capitalists everywhere that the 
people will be exploited by the right kind of advertising ; and that 
the people are too heedless and foolish to consider their expenses 
enough to demand and enact laws to protect themselves. 

It is just as essential that food products should be regulated 
by law as it is that freight rates should be regulated by law. All 
salaries for public services are regulated by law, and those of the 
salaried men who make laws wink at the manufacturers and talk 
the competition theory to the producers and consumers while 
they, the men with fixed incomes, from sheriff to president, 
manufacturers, rent collectors, bankers and potentates, point with 
pride to our splendid civilization. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 129 

These exploiters feel so generous that they organize themselves 
into Good Fellows every Christmas to make the poor children 
happy one day in the year. They enlist the aid of the daily 
papers to help the people to be cheerful, patriotic and hopeful; 
so the exploitation will continue to make poor and needy enough 
for another Merry Christmas. Round and round these plunder- 
ing optimists operate, persuading themselves that it is because 
they are so energetic and bright that success meets them at every 
turn. 

The sad part about this condition is, that these poor con- 
sumers and producers are so ignorant and reckless in their habits 
of life that they cannot be taught to see why and how they are 
imposed upon by competition among themselves and exploitation 
by those who manage the industries and make the laws. Quietly 
and serenely the nostrum-vendor gets in his noxious work on the 
credulous citizens, almost entirely by skillful advertising, and 
little or no attempt is ever made by law to hinder this kind of de- 
ception. 

The prosperity of the daily newspapers is based on the ad- 
vertising they can command, and thus the people are persuaded 
and coaxed into buying all kinds of useless things for which they 
have no use, and most all of which are sold on a fifty-per-cent- 
profit basis. This is the business which gives the Good Fellows 
an advantage over the unsuspecting consumers, and which ena- 
bles them to be so generous at Christmas-time ; but there is great 
enlightenment not far distant. 

Here is something unusual in the first column of the Topeka 
Daily Capital, from Prof. Frank W. Blackmar, February 4th, 1911 : 

"Our American democracy depends for its future success upon 
the organizations of neighborhoods into social bodies for the pre- 
vention of crime. It is easy also to pass laws, but the crucial 
test of it all is when these laws are put into effect. The American 



130 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

people have come to look upon officers of the law as their masters, 
and to leave all law enforcement to them. They should realize 
that the officers are the public servants, and every citizen has a 
particular interest in the way the affairs of State are run. How- 
ever, so that the best good may come from a healthy interest by 
the voters in the affairs of the State, there should be organization. 
The best things are always secured by a united effort of good 
people. The secret of good government and the progress of 
modern life lies not in the curing of crime, but in the prevention 
of crime. Everyone should be interested in building up a social 
condition and environment that will be an influence toward the 
right and no producer of crime. In this, special care should be 
given to the training of children. Every good citizen should 
take an interest in the boys of his neighborhood, and especially 
so if any of them show signs of being wild and inclined toward 
crime. Many a child has gone to the bad because at the critical 
moment no friendly word or touch of the hand has been given 
him. 

"Play is just as necessary to the growth and development of 
children, as is work to the grown person. The great fault with 
present ideas with regard to the training of children, is that the 
play idea is lost sight of in the desire that the child shall not lose 
sight of the work idea. A child reared without play is as abnormal 
as the man who has no work. The churches and Sundaj^ schools 
have failed to use the greatest influence for good ever known, by 
which the lives of children can be controlled. All of them learn 
from our associations, and if the churches were to furnish means 
for amusement there would be no problem for handling the youth 
of our country. 

"We are never created fully, until we are created socially. 
If the church and Sunday school were to look after the social, 
instead of the so-called spiritual needs of the growing voter, the 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 131 

nation would be a great gainer, and likewise would be the church 
and the Sunday school. 

" There is this to say in favor of the child-labor law : it places 
the government on the side of the best conditions for the grow- 
ing citizens. In cases where poor parents cannot afford to send 
their children to school, the labor law works an injustice, and there 
should be some way by which these children should be given a 
pittance while they are in school; therefore organize with this 
end in view : A social playground and place of amusement where 
all may meet for the social good of the community." 

To advance modern improvements and theories we must read 
less of the old times, and practice the knowledge associated with 
the telephone age. The books written in this age ought to be 
read more than those written in less progressive ages. 

Dash, I am feeling lonesome. Nothing would please me bet- 
ter than for you to come to Topeka and stay two or three weeks. 
I feel the need of your association. Come if you can, while the 
Legislature is in session, and we will be in the gallery whenever 
anything important is being discussed. 

We will attend all the theaters, picture shows, and churches. 
You need just such a change since you and Vina no longer get 
joy from the same source. I feel sorry for you, but I feel more 
sorry for Vina, if anything so disgraceful as you have hinted has 
happened. Come. Please come! 

Always your friend, Lin a. 



XIV. 
IN THE DOME OF THE CAPITOL. 

Lina — How do you feel? 

Dash — Exalted. How do you feel? 

Lina — Exhausted. Climbing those winding stairs, in so short 
a time, reminds me that there is a limit to my strength. How I 
wish we might rest long enough to admire this beautiful city and 
then be able to go on up to where the air is so light that it would 
barely sustain our lives, and still be as safe as we are in the dome 
of this building! I desire so much to do something unusual to- 
day ; would like to aeronaut from here to another planet ; would 
like to go where there is no strife and sorrow, no pain and trouble ; 
where joy and gentleness would be the heritage of everything 
that breathes and moves. 

Dash — I think you are doing something unusual while you 
are so much desiring to aeronaut ; but you would get lonesome 
without an Arius to hold your hand as you so willingly consent 
to my doing. It has been only a few months since you were very 
much disturbed when I attempted to take your hand. 

Lina — Let it go, please, for the present; the unusual, I find, 
must not come too sudden. Let anticipation explore and prepare 
me for the unexpected. 

Dash — Unexpected! Did you really suppose that I would 
leave my business and spend a couple of weeks with you and treat 
you as an ancient maiden lady? Talk nothing but books, prohi- 
bition, equal suffrage, sociology and such? If you did you surely 
prepared for the unusual. 

Lina — Look over to the west; those splendid buildings are 
where the feeble-minded are confined. That fine building on the 

(132) 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 133 

corner to the northeast, is where the Capper publications are 
handled, and around here to the east are the Santa Fe offices ; over 
to the east in the distance the shops are located; there on the 
southeast corner, is the State Printing Plant ; away to the south- 
west is the Washburn College. This large brownstone building, 
on the northeast corner of the square, is the City Library. Those 
two large brick buildings northwest of the square, on either side 
of the street, are the High School and Manual Training School. 
Now behold the fine city. Public schools and churches in every 
direction, and the splendid residences, business houses, manufactur- 
ing plants, hotels, hospitals, power plants. Off in the distance 
look at the superb agricultural communities. What a soul-stirring 
panorama ! How delightful ! All this I have enjoyed alone several 
times, but methinks it is more entrancing today than ever before. 

Dash — Yes, the scene is rather nice ; nevertheless there is a 
being near me, more interesting to me than everything else in 
view. 

Lina — Ah, Dash, you could make me happier than I can tell, 
and you could also make me so miserable that I would be tempted 
to leap head first from this high place to the iron structure below, 
ending my life, but for the belief that such a rash act would re- 
tard my development in eternity. 

Dash — It confuses me some to know that you are not more 
self-poised than to think of anything so awful. Let us not entertain 
anything so unworthy of such a high place as this ; you are more 
impressed with the works of man than you are with the works of 
Nature. Nature has so many works which the ingenuity of man 
cannot counterfeit. Nature speaks in unmistakable terms to all 
mankind, in a language which does not need interpretation. 
Hence the uselessness of all these churches. They have their 
origin in an ignorant age, and are used today as a money-making 
scheme for idlers. In the immensity of the universe we see 



134 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

Nature'sjiandiwork, and through Nature's laws we are educated 
more in morality than the churches can teach us. 

Lina — Oh, please, Dash, let us not get into an argument; 
you are opening up a subject which human beings will likely always 
be quarreling about ; you are not saying the things that I want to 
hear today. There are subjects more interesting to us than 
religion. 

Dash — All right! So be it! I would rather go right into that 
Edison power plant and have some good electrician explain its 
wonderful operation than to hear the best theologian that ever 
lived. The school buildings excite my admiration ; and whatever 
veneration I have goes toward those printing plants, libraries, 
business houses, this State building and all the State and private 
institutions which are useful to the people. Yes, it is very en- 
joyable to behold this scene. 

Lina — This evening at 7 : 30 the legislators are going to discuss 
the Suffrage bill to amend our Constitution, and I know we will 
enjoy it. A more beautiful day than this in February, we seldom 
have; so pleasant, is it not? 

Dash — I do not see how the day could be any nicer. The 
perspective of this scene does not show the theatre buildings, does 
it? 

Lina — Sure. There is the Grand, right down north, on the 
west side of Jackson. The Majestic and the Novelty are over 
there east of Kansas avenue, on the north side of Eighth. All 
these we will visit before you go back. Next Sunday we will go 
to the social lecture between here and the bridge on the east side 
of Kansas avenue. There are things much more interesting to 
see and hear than anything we have in view up here. I have taken 
more interest in the State-house on account of the legislature 
being in session. There are so many laws which would be bene- 
ficial to society, and which would be enacted were it not for party 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 135 

politics ; jealousy in politics seems almost as prevelant as in social 
circles. 

Dash — You will most likely get into the Socialist movement 
and mount the rostrum with Warren and Debs when you get tired 
of Topeka. 

Lina — There is no likelihood of that. But the progressives 
will have to appropriate some of their thunder (Warren's and 
Debs's) to carry thenext campaign in Kansas. There is a general 
breaking-up of party lines. People are beginning to think that 
workers should get all they earn, and that office-holders and 
capitalists should get only what they earn. As a matter of fact, 
salaries of county, State and national officials are all out of pro- 
portion with legitimate industrial incomes. When the salary of 
the President of the United States was raised from $50,000 to 
$100,000, that was a hard blow on a democratic form of govern- 
ment. The flimsy excuse for doing this was that able men in the 
ordinary vocations were getting more than this, and that the 
ablest men in the country could not be procured unless the salaries 
were all increased. The men who were getting more were not 
doing it by fair means. It was only done by modern, legal ras- 
cality, taking more than they earned. The presidents of insurance 
companies and railroad companies were pointed out as the ablest, 
and for applying schemes to take advantage of consumers and pro- 
ducers they certainly were able. Surely, no just man will claim 
that Carnegie and Rockefeller earn all they get, and that the men 
who dig the mineral and pipe the oil from the earth get all they 
earn. When men get in power, they care little about the struggles 
laborers are having. There are no offices in the country that could 
not be filled by thousands of men just as capable as those who now 
occupy them, and there never has been a scarcity of good men 
offering themselves. Things cannot continue many years as they 
are now. Industrial adjustments on new lines of justice will 



136 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

spring from the intelligence generated by freedom of speech and 
press. 

Dash — So you are taking a cheerful view of it, but you are 
mistaken just the same in believing that a better condition for 
those who labor is near at hand. History has not made any such 
a record. And it would be against Nature's law to do anything 
of the kind. Population would become so dense that we would 
be starving as they are in China. The older a country gets the 
higher the salaries are, and the cheaper the wages. It is so easy 
to keep wages low when the laborers are ignorant ; and unless 
the churches quit teaching the ignorant to worship God, there 
will be no change ; and civilization will fall back to where it 
started from. If modern ethics and metaphysics had the money 
which is wasted in the God business, to help the ignorant out of 
their thraldom, some such a condition as you imagine might pre- 
vail. The churches serve these two evil purposes : The rich be- 
lieve it is by divine providence that they are the masters, and 
may live by the efforts of the poor; and the poor believe it is 
by the will of God that they are slaves, instead of masters ; while 
the preachers with pious pomp repeat, " Blessed are the meek 
and lowly, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven," etc. So, my 
dear old girl, you had just as well dismiss economics and get 
a copy of "In His Steps," or some other fool piece of fiction; 
marry a preacher and raise a family. Did you notice, what Cap- 
per, MacLennan, and Sheldon, in brotherly conclave, it seems, 
at one of the churches last night, had to say about the newspapers? 

Lin a — I did noi read it ; I noticed the headlines. I was so 
interested to have you with me that I was not absorbed in local 
affairs. 

Dash — That man Capper is smooth, and Sheldon is narrow, 
intolerant, and 100 years behind the times so far as his ideas of 
progression are concerned. I judge you are somewhat in sym- 
pathy with Mr. Sheldon in his estimation of newspapers. He 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 137 

deplores the indecency of the newspapers, yet the worst news- 
papers we have do not use as indecent language as the Bible 
contains. Mr. MacLennan referred Mr. Sheldon to this, and he 
and Capper too, palliated this fact all they could. But no doubt 
the divine doer who does the rich people on a dollar basis, and the 
poor on a 25-cent basis, thinks he is not getting a fair deal through 
the newspapers. If you can advance yourself to that point of 
reality in which newspapers prove their superiority from a moral 
point of view, then indeed you will be a reformer. 

Lina — Let us go down to the museum on the top floor of the 
main building and see the many interesting things. I do not want 
to talk religion; you will get so sarcastic and disrespectful. 
Awhile ago you referred to church work as "God business." I 
know the keen lash of your sarcasm and ridicule too well to en- 
courage it. 

Dash — Pshaw! I'm not talking religion — just getting a few 
facts off my mind so I can talk love. There is also a report in the 
Daily Capital, telling how the itinerant gospel dealer at the Audi- 
torium moves his wares out to anxious sinners. He tells Chris- 
tians how they " follow Christ afar off." Of course he deals in 
the same kind of rant that the other dealers do. He works on 
the 25-cent per capita basis, and cultivates the good graces of the 
brethren to save board. 

Lina — Are you about done? 

Dash — Yes, but the attack you made on advertising needs 
a review, and you can do> no better than to read Mr. Capper's 
reply to Sheldon. This reply is logical and liberal, thorough and 
comprehensive. It fairly glitters with bright conclusions. Mr. 
Capper is the best material for the next Governor, and Mr. 
MacLennan is a close second, judging from their progressive 
comments in that conclave. You remember a lew years ago Mr. 
Capper allowed Mr. Sheldon to edit the Daily according to Christ 
& Co. Mr. MacLennan tells what a slump there was in the sub- 



138 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

scription list after he (Sheldon) quit the job, and he and Capper 
were so courteous that they never reminded Sheldon that it was 
out of curiosity and the novelty of the scheme that the public for 
one week gave the paper a large circulation. Everyone knows 
that if Sheldon had edited the Daily a year, instead of a week, he 
would have killed it too dead to skin. 

Lina — What an expression! Where did you get it? Why do 
you use it? 

Dash — Oh, it is just a habit. The Rubes out in western Kan- 
sas use it when a thing is so dead that it is not approachable — 
so dead that it cannot be utilized for any purpose whatever, not 
even for soap-grease. 

Lina — I hope you feel better since you have got rid of some 
of your sarcasm. However, Mr. Sheldon is regarded as one of 
the best citizens in Topeka. 

Dash — I am not saying anything against him as a citizen ; it 
is with his capacity as a teacher of morals that I have to do. This 
thing they call Christianity, which is so badly overestimated, has 
no monopoly on morality. A man can be just as good without 
it as he can with it. Society needs a morality independent of 
Christian morals. 

Lina — Now you are endeavoring to draw me into an argu- 
ment, by introducing ways and means to establish better morals. 
You know something about liquor and tobacco, the two worst 
evils of this age. Tell the world the evils of intoxicating liquor 
and tobacco. Give your experience. How did you ever manage 
to quit them? 

Dash — Nature taught me in the plainest way possible. It is 
like this : Poison, in small doses, has a pleasant sensation for the 
nerves, the kind of stupor that it first creates, when a boy first 
uses it, is pleasant, though nauseating if he gets the least bit too 
much. Tobacco contains enough poison to make it enticingly 
dangerous. Nature created mankind so that anything which 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 139 

is a little dangerous is very interesting. At the age when a boy 
has never been contaminated with evil, a very small particle of 
tobacco placed in the mouth will give him those sensations, and 
if he should swallow this small particle he would become deathly 
sick. Very seldom it is that a boy swallows tobacco-juice the 
second time. He finds he has to increase the doses to get the 
proper sensation. The habit soon becomes established, and the 
filthy tranquil feeling gradually becomes less, but the craving 
to have it still remains. A boy enjoys doing what a man does, 
and when he finds he can use a whole lot of tobacco and spit 
straight, he is right well satisfied with himself ; his nerves be- 
come weak, and his digestion impaired, if he is just an ordinary 
boy. With extraordinary boys, I would rather not try to analyze 
influences and consequences. No doubt all who use it are more 
or less abnormal, and if they can be made to realize this, they will 
generally quit it through self-respect. 

Lina — Well, you have made quite a little speech, but you have 
told more about how to commence using it than you have told 
how to quit. 

Dash — The way to quit anything is to quit it. A better thing 
is never to commence it. I find by experience that my mind is 
clearer and more, active and my health better since I quit it. 

Lina — Would you favor legislation that would prohibit the 
manufacturing of it? • 

Dash — Yes, I would. It is not essential to a man's welfare. 
It is a poisonous drug, and the bad influence it has on manhood 
is almost beyond estimation, and I believe that woman suffraiiv is 
the only power that will exterminate it. 

Lina — You believe, then, it is possible to legislate mankind 
into being good? 

Dash — No; but I do believe it is possible to legislate so as to 
hinder him from being quite so bad, by discouraging the manu- 
facture and sale of tobacco, the same as intoxicating liquors. 



140 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

Lina — Could you outline a code of morals that would serve in 
the place which Christians claim as theirs originally? 

Dash — Easily. Be good. This is not going to be a Sermon 
on the Mount, but a declaration of morals from the top of Topeka 
Capitol. Be good, not in the name of the son of anybody, but 
for the sake of mankind and the preservation of this civilization. 
Be good, because it is the way to be happy. Be good by being 
sociable, honest and industrious, cheerful, hopeful, and generous. 
Be good by not trying to interfere with innocent sports and pas- 
times on Sunday with a view to making people attend church. 
Be good by helping those in trouble, and speaking kindly, and re- 
proving those who do wrong through ignorance. Be good by 
supporting the good civil laws of our country. Be good by being 
careful not to violate the rights of others in the pursuit of your 
own happiness. Be good by honoring and respecting everyone 
who is worthy, and by denouncing evil in all its forms. Dis- 
courage the use of tobacco and intoxicating liquors by helping to 
prohibit the manufacture and sale by law enactment. Be good 
whenever you can, wherever you can, and in as many ways as you 
can. Be good by being sensible enough to quit praying to an 
imaginary God. Be your own motor, and trust yourself in matters 
of fine discernment. Be good by trying to develop yourself to 
pursue some honorable vocation. Be good by shunning an idle, 
indolent life. Be good by supporting and encouraging public 
schools and all other public institutions which contribute to the 
welfare of mankind. Be good by obeying nature's law, and you 
will be as happy as it is possible for human beings to be. 

Lina — Well, a person would have to be better than most 
people are to be all your sermonette recommends. I suppose you 
call it modern inspiration. 

Dash — It's a whole lot better to live by than what the preachers 
call Divine inspiration. The unwritten laws of nature, coming 
through man's experience, have inspired the Capitol " sermonette.' ' 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 141 

But I would rather not have the name " sermonette " attached. 
Capitol morals, from man's experience with nature's laws, put into 
words, are inspirations that do not need a lot of flunkeys to ex- 
plain them. 

Lina — " Flunkeys" ! There you go again. Is that your idea of 
being generous? 

Dash — That is my idea of being honest, and calling things by 
their right names. Fine discriminations are worthy of every-day 
practice. 

Lina — When there are so many evils more evident than those 
which in your perverted mind appear to be the greatest, and which 
in the majority of minds are not considered evils, it is strange that 
you do not denounce economic evils which produce the wretchedly 
poor, and the heartless rich. 

Dash — I see : you would have me lead out on "Progress and 
Poverty," or " Progressive Progression" as seen through the 
smoky goggles of a Socialist. Your ideas of a new industrialism 
which you have analyzed at length in your letters are not appli- 
cable to the present state of society, in which some are industrious 
and ambitious and others are lazy and indolent, thoughtless, in- 
temperate, and extravagant. I predict when Old Ed Howe's 
new magazine gets in its work you Socialists will get some new 
light. The economic conditions which prevail at present are not 
utilized by the poorer class of people ; that is the reason that they 
have hardships and poverty. Your scathing briefs on the good 
fellows in general, are poorly taken. If the enterprising men did 
not go ahead and build up the cities, the shiftless poor would not 
have any houses to live in; they are so thoughtless and di>- 
sipated, and so steeped with religious mysticism. — Don't cry, my 
dear friend; I did not mean to hurt your feelings. Come, let us 
go down into the museum. 

Lina — Oh, Dash, why, oh, why will you be so blind I have 
come to love you as no other living person. I thought when your 



142 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

personal habits were improved, you would be more generous in 
looking at the civic conditions which make the poor and the 
wretched, but you seem hard-hearted. You have an awful ad- 
vantage of me now, because I have allowed myself to love you. — 
You never saw me cry like this. I am sorry I lost control of 
myself. 

Dash — Excuse me, my dear friend; let me hold your hand. 
We will quit the Capitol dome, and we will be more congenial. I 
did not come here to make you miserable like this. I did not 
suspect you were so emotional. Let your grief pass ; allow me 
to look into your pretty eyes. There are other sight-seers coming 
up inside the dome. We can come up here another day before I 
go back to western Kansas. Tomorrow evening in your room, we 
will enjoy a privacy where your emotions cannot disturb any 
other than myself. 



XV. 
IN LINA'S ROOM IN TOPEKA. 

Lina — I am glad you came so early ; we can visit two hours 
before the Suffrage meeting at the State-house. I have been quite 
well contented in this room most of the time this winter, but I am 
getting tired of this kind of life. To live in a city where nearly 
all are entire strangers is very interesting for a while, and the 
while would be of lifetime duration if the means of living were 
abundant. It is only because I have to practice a disagreeable 
economy to keep myself that my time gets irksome. If a person 
has money as well as intelligence, and respectability, the chances 
for enjoyment are greatly enhanced. 

Dash — Do you mean to intimate that money can take the 
place of your best friends, in the enjoyment of life? 

Lina — No, not that; but "best friends" can be made so 
numerous that one is less liable to get lonesome, attachments can 
become so strong that dollars cannot measure the strength, so 
strong that one's own life is incomplete without the chance to 
enjoy that attachment. 

Dash — So you have somewhat abandoned the idea that books 
and .^literature can take the place of human beings? 

Lina — I do not remember that I ever had that idea. There 
are times when silence, books and papers do entertain to entire 
satisfaction ; but those times are mere interims between real, 
energetic association in which we hear the voice, see the e3 r e, and 
touch the person of a fellow-being. We are products of nature, 
and must have those who are like us to get anj'thing like complete 
enjoyment. 

Dash — God, alone, is rather poor company, is he not? 
(143) 



144 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

Lina — I must confess, Dash, that I do not know anything 
about God, except what I have read in books and heard in church. 
Let us not talk religion any more this evening. 

Dash — I'll agree to that if you will agree to let economics 
alone. 

Lina — Good! That is fair; I am as tired of political economy 
as I am of religion as a subject of entertainment, except there be a 
big audience. Between you and I, I fear there will always be a 
disagreement on these subjects. Tell me something about your 
social adventures since I left. 

Dash — You already know about the most serious adventure 
I have had, for I believe Vina has told you fully as much as I 
have told you. 

Lina — Your social adventures I hope were not all confined to 
Vina. Surely not. There are so many marriageable young 
women out there. 

Dash — I have found it more harmonious not to relate very 
much about my experience with women. Even to a confidential 
friend, it is desperately unsafe. 

Lina — I received a letter from Vina last night. She is heart- 
broken, and contemplates coming here to live. 

Dash — I would rather see that letter than anything else she 
has ever written. I have been bothered some about her, but I 
did intend that she should never know it. I never treated her in 
any other way than I have treated you. I may have been blunt, 
and seemingly ungenteel, but I never intended to be disrespectful. 
Since she rejected me I have said nothing to anybody, except you, 
about the matter. I regret that I have not demanded my letters 
and the presents which I gave. She should send them and a 
formal rejection in her own handwriting. I foolishly destroyed 
a note she wrote me, in which a formal rejection was plain enough 
to go as evidence in defense of a breach of promise suit. She has 
a letter, I am afraid, that I wrote while in Denver. If I could 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 145 

know that this letter was destroyed, I would feel easier. Some of 
the breach of promise suits which were given in detail in the Topeka 
Daily Capital ought to be a warning to a man. I would like to 
know how Vina feels about the matter. 

Lina — I can tell you about how she feels, and you will be sur- 
prised more than you have been lately, but I could not show 
you her letter without doing her an injustice as well as myself. — 
Courtships sometimes take queer turns, and become very hazard- 
ous. The most humiliating sight I ever knew was a breach of 
promise suit here in Topeka. All those who attended this suit 
certainly ought to have learned a lesson. Dishonor in love affairs 
has been the source of more tragedies than anything else ; it has 
also caused more blighted lives than tongue or pen can ever tell. 
In many cases jealousy precedes the most serious troubles we have ; 
and right here, I am going to make a confession which many 
women would not make : I am jealous of my niece. The evils 
which we inherit are hard to combat, but I vow and declare that 
this jealousy shall not cause anybody but myself, any trouble or 
grief. If you love Vina more than me, I'll help you to repair your 
broken engagement. 

Dash — I do not want to commit myself in any way whatever, 
but I would like to know how she feels since she has had a new 
experience and ample time to reconsider what she has done. Any- 
thing she may have said will not surprise me more than your con- 
fession. The confession, not the jealousy, is what surprised me 
most. It is not often a woman will admit such a thing as being 
jealous, which seems more prevalent among them than among men. 

Lina — My view is opposite on your last statement. I wish 
you could have seen the play of The Country Town, at the Ma- 
jestic Theatre. The most abject case of jealousy on record could 
not have been more intense than that of Joe Herring. Mattel, 
his wife, never gave him sufficient cause either. This story was 
written by a man who surely knew how men act and feel. The 



146 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

story is true to life, and teaches a wonderful lesson. I do not 
believe that you know anything about jealousy from your own 
experience ; but I think Vina is just as jealous as I am, and it 
might be the proper thing for you to forsake us both. You have 
said you would never marry an old maid, and I never would have 
let you know how dear you are to me if you had not asked me to 
marry you such a short while ago. I have always thought that a 
man should do all the proposing. 

Dash — It is not necessary for you to get so near to an apology. 
All women do most of the proposing; actions are more forcible 
and convincing than words. Most all women make their husbands 
believe that they never proposed. The language of nature has 
but few words, and in case of sex love, there is no need of words at 
all; so you need not feel abashed. When we were up in the 
Capitol dome, your eyes, your voice, and your emotions made a 
more forcible proposal than any words could have done. — Tell 
me how Vina feels. I am beginning to feel like I have a complexly 
complicated situation to dispose of before I can feel right. 

Lina — I told you she felt heartbroken ; and if I should tell her 
what you hinted to me, concerning her relations with the minister, 
I think she would have renewed disgust for you, and I once 
thought of telling this when my jealousy had a hold on me. I can 
tell you best by reading you a small portion of her letter. What 
concerns you and her directly I'll read. This is what she has to 
say: "My mistakes have been serious. Mr. Blank's demeanor 
since I requested no further attention from him has caused me no 
small amount of distress. I was partly persuaded into treating 
him as I did, by the young man with whom I was attending ser- 
vices, and who has since proved himself to be a scoundrel. This 
young man was passing himself as a single man, and there was a 
detective here since he left, with a warrant for his arrest. He left 
a wife and child in Virginia. He professed to be an evangelist, 
and was nice-appearing. Mr. Blank was not as gallant and 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 147 

polished in manners as I once took him to be; he is better at 
heart than most men. Yes, I can say more : he is better at heart 
than any man I know. And after all, it is so much better to be 
good than to make a profession of being a Christian. You see I 
have made the most serious mistake of my life, and I have re- 
solved to seek him in person and ask his forgiveness. When he 
left recently he did not tell anyone except Mr. B., a man who 
lives on one of his farms, where he was going ; so I do not know 
where a letter would reach him. Mr. B. said he was going to 
Topeka before he returned, so I beg you, my dear good Aunt, to 
intercede for me if you see him before I do. I am so worried that 
I am half sick all the time. I may have to give up my school ; 
I can easily get a young man in the neighborhood to finish the 
term." 

Dash — I see an honorable way out of this unfortunate situ- 
ation, but I am not going to be in a hurry to accept it, for I have 
done no wrong and she has been foolish and frisky. Some girls 
never get over being giddy, and I propose to let her have time to 
develop into a better and more thoughtful woman. I've had my 
mind made up for some time to take a trip to Los Angeles, Cali- 
fornia; and I am going to avoid meeting her till I come back 
from there. She is anxious to come to this place and be with 
you, and if you will get her to read those books, Age of Reason, 
by Tom Paine, and the Riddle of the Universe, by Ernest Haeckel, 
and read them yourself, I'll await patiently for developments. 
I would like to travel a year and be among strangers all the time, 
and see what would be the effects on my social, moral, and politi- 
cal convictions. I must confess that conclusions on many im- 
portant subjects are changing. I have done so long without a 
companion, and I read of so many divorces, and general mix- 
ups in married life, that I am contented in waiting a while longer. 
I never could get even one woman whom I wanted, entirely in 
the notion of marrying me ; now that I have two, it seems that 



148 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

my future is going to be quite interesting. I am not sure that 
I am worthy of either one of them ; so it is on their behalf as well 
as my own that I intend to procrastinate. I am not going to 
take this course with any feeling of resentment toward your 
niece, and it is only fair to tell you that I have more confidence 
in you than I have in her ; but to marry you now, even though 
she has rejected me, I would be taking a risk with the courts, 
which I do not care to assume. What do you think about it? 

Lina — Oh, Dash, I'm sick! I'm afraid I am not going to be 
able to go out tonight ; anyhow, I would rather stay here and talk 
to you than to go to that Suffrage doings at the State-house. 
As to what I think about your course, it would take a whole volume 
to tell. I am thankful you are so candid in telling me your 
thoughts. Oh, what a blessing it is to have a real genuine friend 
in whom we can trust every thought that enters the brain. I am 
undecided whether you are right or wrong, and I am in a position 
in this matter, where it will be very hard for me to be as generous 
as I ought to be. A concession from you on one or two points 
of my procedure, or rather an opinion from you, would make 
my counsel to Lina much easier to give. 

Dash — Anything I can grant to you in opinion I shall be glad 
to give ; and anything I can yield within the bounds of honor, 
I shall be glad to accede. I love you both. 

Lina — It is so hard for me to tell you the flashes of thought 
and questionable conclusions which are making my head ache. 
Would it be right for me to lead Vina into a new courtship and 
get her married to some nice young man? 

Dash — " Everything is fair in war," some one has said; but 
it is doubtful if everything and anything are justifiable in cam- 
paigns of this kind. However, the end might justify the means, 
for it might lead her into a first-class match, a mating in which 
she would enjoy her religion. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 149 

Lina — Then you would not think it wrong if I did not get 
her to read those books? 

Dash — It might be doing her an injustice in the light of a 
selfish motive on your behalf. 

Lina — That is true. I shall do right, and let the consequences 
be what they may. But oh, Dash, I dread to think of your going 
so far away and staying so long; I know that I shall be more 
lonesome, nervous and distressed after you leave than I have 
ever been. You may not realize how hard it is for me to give 
you up. I am so willing now to trust you in every way that a 
woman can trust a man. I know you are in the course of a de- 
velopment that will make you as good as it is possible for a man 
to be. 

Dash — Have you any doubt in your mind of it being possible 
for a man to be as good as a woman? 

Lina — No. They are essentially the same, subject to the 
same influences, and apt to change. Let us go to the Audi- 
torium to the Scoville revivals. 

Dash — Do you think I am subject to change on topics which 
might be introduced by an evangelist? 

Lina — You might be benefitted, even if you were not changed 
in conviction. You might get some new points in how a noted 
Chicago man conducts a modern revival. 

Dash — We will attend that place soon. I would rather go to 
the Grand, tonight. It will be better for you, I think. 

Lina — Very well ; we will go at once. 



XVI. 
THE LAST MESSAGE. 

When I left you in Topeka last month I determined to give at 
the first opportunity my appreciation of the modern gospel ser- 
vices at the Auditorium. The way the Rev. Mr. Rockwell con- 
ducted the song service was about the best display of " monkey- 
shines" that I ever saw. Of course it was entertaining to see and 
hear how he got that vast audience to repeat choruses and whistle 
them while he jumped up and down and clapped his hands just 
like a juvenile. Getting the audience to read those old senseless 
passages in concert just like so many little monkeys trying to 
imitate each other was very amusing. When the Rev. Mr. 
Scoville asked the Christians to hold up their hands, it was about 
as pitiable as it was laughable to see how so many would hold 
their hands almost up to their shoulders and. look sheepish and 
timid like a lot of children who were making a pretense of some- 
thing of which they were ashamed. 

Then the little stupid senseless prayers, all so much alike, and 
so familiar to everybody, that the stories of old Mother Goose 
would be about as appropriate for an intelligent audience to be 
enthused over. Yet it, was all funny enough for a change, and it 
was really enjoyable, in much the same sense that a circus is en- 
joyable. 

"All the powers of the earth are in me" was about as wild a 
text as the preacher could find, and about as untruthful as the lips 
of man could get between them. The extravagant application 
of the powers which they have peddled to the ignorant, super- 
stitious and credulous people no longer compete with the achieve- 
ments of science. There are just as lofty ideals of morality seeking 

(150) 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 151 

assertion and acceptance by the scientists as there are by these 
preachers ; and those pathetic stories which are related to get the 
boys and girls to join the church, appeal to the emotions, and are 
not ethical moral reasons for being good. 

Maybe some day I'll have to back down from all I have said 
about religion, but I have uttered the truth as I see it. 

There is a political octopus at Girard that I am afraid of, and 
I am going to put everything I have into interest-bearing funds 
and go to Mexico or near its border, and wait for developments. 
When the revolutionary cloud passes I'll try the Montezumas, 
that place of perpetual spring. If I can get hold of several 
haciendas, and get Uncle Sam to back me in my possessions, I'll 
come back and live in Topeka and draw on Mexico instead of my 
native land. 

President Taft has backed down, thrown down the bars to 
Warren, Wayland, and the Debs. They will proceed to denounce 
private ownerships in lands with renewed vigor. " These men 
ought to all be in jail, or deported to Hades" is what I heard a 
prominent Topeka man say, but no power on earth can hinder 
them very many more years from convincing the majority of 
voters that every man should have all that he earns, and that no 
man should have more than he earns. 

A new dispensation of the holdings of the natural resources of 
the country is sure to come, and if a fellow desires to live without 
work he must own lands and mortgages or deposit everything he 
has in U. S. postal banks, and be contented with the small interest 
allowed, or live on the principal. 

You and Vina will have ample time to adjust the predicament 
satisfactorily, I hope. In the mean time we will study Socialism, 
religion, and science; and I hereby postpone marriage till 1913. 
If there is enough superstition about either of you to object to the 
13th year and the 13th day of some month in that year, I am will- 
ing to postpone the matter indefinitely. 



152 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

The Socialists are aiming to have the government receive all 
the money deposits. Next thing they will be demanding that no 
citizen shall be allowed to collect interest or money ; and that the 
government shall be the only recipient of interest, and will demand 
that all notes and bonds be deposited with the government, and 
the owners allowed nothing but the principal. 

The future looks dark for a good fellow who don't like to work. 
How in the name of Jesus are we good fellows to live? 

Happiness. 

Happiness comes from being good, healthy, and well situated ; 
and there are as many degrees of happiness as there are numbers of 
human beings. Each person gets it according to his disposition, 
and according to his being good, healthy, and well situated. 

Some people can never be very happy, because they were 
evolved under unfavorable circumstances, over which of course 
they had no control. Here is where heredity plays havoc with the 
happiness of all of us, more or less. Persons born with abnormal 
appetites and desires cannot be very happy, and such are apt to be 
more miserable than happy. How very essential, then, that 
children should be well born. Being well born, then improperly 
instructed, leads to misery just as surely as being poorly born; 
so the social environments have a great deal to do with happiness 
as well as usefulness. Here is where prohibition is going to do 
service for the well-born as well as those poorly born. 

The whole human race is tainted with inherent evils, the worst 
of which is intemperance, in eating, drinking, and self-indulgence. 
To over-indulge the sensuous as well as the sensual desires hampers 
both health and happiness. 

Reading emotional books frequently tends to the ruin of the 
eyes, the same as nibbling at candies and nuts to accommodate the 
sensuous pleasure of taste brings stomach disorders. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 153 

The second worst inherent evil is the universal use of tobacco. 
It does not only contribute to the gratification of sensuous pleas- 
ure, but to a morbid condition of the brain ; especial^ is this so 
among children. This tobacco habit has got the same hold upon 
the American people that opium has on the Chinese. The fact 
that the women of this country do not yet use tobacco to any ex- 
tent, makes a hopeful chance that sometime we may be able to 
place the same restriction on the manufacture and sale of tobacco 
that we now place upon intoxicating liquors. Blessed be the day, 
for it will contribute much happiness. Some children — and the 
writer was one of them — like the taste and influence of tobacco 
from their infancy. 

Being good branches out into so many kinds of human effort 
that it is necessary to consider all kinds of industries. However, 
there are some general rules of moral conduct, all of which ought 
to be observed in every vocation. They are listed as follows : 
Be good by being sociable, honest, and diligent ; cheerful, hope- 
ful, and generous, aiming to be helpful to the community at large 
as well as to each individual with whom you associate, but at the 
same time never violating your own rights, thereby reducing 
your own possibilities for doing good and being good. Here is 
where we must not take an erroneous view of self-sacrifice. To 
take too great a risk of destroying the health and safety of our- 
selves is recklessness, the evils of which are only a little more 
excusable than attempting to do nothing. 

Of course there are times and occasions when we do not have 
time to deliberate, when the impulse of the moment demands imme- 
diate action. In such cases the brave, unselfish being will act 
rashly and excite the condemnation of those who mean well, 
but who are not liberal enough to be really good. 

To gain the greatest happiness for ourselves and those who 
act, necessarily, in opposition to us, we have to consider error and 
evil, both of which influence society to cease making progress. 



154 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

The private homes are where the principles of happiness begin 
to influence the careers of all. Then the schools with additional 
intellectual help aid us to where we are supposed to be qualified 
for good citizens. After this the legislative enactments are most 
influential in shaping our material welfare. 

It will be noticed that the church is not considered a factor 
in producing happiness and extending the welfare of a country. 
The church as an entertainer is not equal to the theater, and the 
best dramas in our theaters have more moral worth and more 
influence for happiness than the best sermons. To maintain 
this statement it will be necessary to refer to it in the comments 
on the homes, the schools, and the legislatures. 

In an intellectual contest with Ingersoll, a noted D. D. once 
said : "Give us something equal to our church codes for producing 
happiness before you knock the crutches from under us." It is 
the aim of this last message to show that we have the structural 
ground-work, in the homes, the schools and the legislatures, to 
produce all the happiness that can be attained. 

When a father and mother are well mated they will go through 
all the trials which marriage produces, with a sustaining sympathy 
in which all their children will share. In the best homes, where 
truth and honesty prevail instead of deception and doubt, there 
is where the greatest happiness is enjoyed. 

A little child who listens to a family prayer and sees no good 
evidence of its being answered, and commences to doubt a religion 
which requires it, soon becomes aware of all the deceptions which 
are practiced to make him fear God and the devil. He becomes 
rebellious ; and trouble instead of happiness is the result of his 
religious teaching. The home circles which are most harmonious 
are those in which there is no pretense of communication with 
God by prayer; in these homes the children like books, music, 
games, and play and romp with one another. They do not waste 
their affection on a tyrannical God whom Christians say must 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 155 

be regarded with "fear and trembling." Such people recognize 
that the unyielding laws of nature must be learned and obeyed, 
and that their happiness depends on conforming to those laws, 
and by treating each other kindly. 

They learn to study each other's rights and duties, and do not 
waste time on catechisms and decalogues. Their aspirations 
are to do something like Jefferson, Lincoln, and Edison, and they 
become happy in the pursuit of these aspirations. It is plain 
that the civil laws of the country should be so adjusted that homes 
would be easy to acquire ; so that every industrious family could 
become so situated that they might get the highest degree of 
happiness. 

The public schools qualify the students in a general way, to 
take up the various vocations, equipped with methodical intelli- 
gence which leads the way to success and happiness. 

There is no class of citizens so beneficial to civilization as the 
school teachers, and we seldom see a praying school teacher who 
is a successful instructor. 

It is not possible for a teacher to train scholars into practicing 
good habits, without the aid of parents. If a child will not accept 
good habits and practice them at home, his case is almost hope- 
less. Even when the teacher gets such a child to practice good 
discipline at school, the home influence will destroy the good 
effects of school discipline between the terms of school. 

Parents sometimes say the teacher does not do his duty be- 
cause he does not teach their children to be good and have man- 
ners. The teachers fill their mission if they give good text-book 
instruction and make the children obey during school hours. 
In school there is a great deal of enjoyment for those children 
who are well born and have good homes. So, "There is no place 
like home." 

Laws, to encourage the making of good homes, are needed more 
than anything. The morality of the people would be greatly 



156 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

improved if it were easier for the people to get good comfortable 
homes, and following this they would attain a higher degree of 
happiness. 

The object of a social compact should not be so arranged that 
immense fortunes are accumulated by the minority of the citizens 
while the majority struggle all their lives and never gain the com- 
forts and leisure commensurate with the increased facilities of 
these times. 

Large estates and vast fortunes will surely be levied upon to 
relieve the poverty of the worthy poor ; levied upon in such a way 
that it will amount to confiscation of all above what is needed for 
the comfort and lifetime maintenance of those families now en- 
joying such fortunes. Not in any case would it be right to take 
from the rich and give to the poor, but the State will intercede in 
such a way and under such regulations that the worthy poor may 
earn more abundantly than they have been able to do in the past ; 
under such regulations that lucrative employment will always be 
in readiness for those who need employment, and who have not 
the means to employ themselves. It is beastly inhuman for the 
State to allow any citizen to control wealth which he has not 
earned, while other citizens are forced into idleness as a result of 
such private control. Just how and where to begin such regula- 
tions is now beginning to agitate the public conscience. This is 
in evidence by the utility bills so much discussed in all the State 
and National legislatures. Happiness for the whole population 
is the true mission of State government, and under this mission 
the State cannot afford, under the plea of vested rights, to allow a 
corporation or a wealthy citizen to pauperize industrious citizens 
by monopolizing land, cornering products, or selfishly manipulat- 
ing public utilities. 

There is a way to get at land values, as well as railroad values, 
and by law let a land monopolist know that charging more rent 
than a legal rate of interest on the cost of improvements would 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 157 

amount to, is equivalent to a railroad increasing freight rates to 
pay a legal rate of interest on a sum higher than the physical valua- 
tion. If it is right to make the railroads act within the bounds of 
justice, it is right to make landlords act within the bounds of 
justice. This is the only way to make homes cheap enough to 
enable the working people to get the maximum happiness. It is 
the right way to populate the country with a happ} T , health}-, 
patriotic people ; it is the right way to get more of the people back 
to the soil ; and it would in no way hinder those who farm their 
own land. It provides a way for people to get all they earn and 
do their own managing, which is much better than a system of 
socialism, for the rivalry and individualism are maintained. This, 
with a graduated system of land-tax assessment, would soon 
divide the large farms into smaller possessions, and put each farm 
to its full capacity of production. 

"You twentieth century fool! You cruel crank of a criminal 
age! You are a blind theorist with no regard for the property 
which we have inherited from our parents! You would destroy 
land values and impoverish our city homes ; we could no longer 
have fixed incomes which our parents provided for us! You are 
aiming to defeat us in our attempt to make a good old English 
nobility. You ought to be tarred and feathered and put astride 
of a log and started over the Niagara Falls." 

Oh, these awful shades! They get hold of my pencil and spread 
this aristocratic abuse all over a nicely arranged argument. These 
same shades are skillful dealers in real estate, and get the laboring 
people to trust them absolutely, then they take the earnings of 
the poor, systematically, by a legal process of interest on notes 
and bonds, rents, installment payments, etc. At Christmas-time 
these shades give liberally to the Good Fellows' fund, and some- 
times give as high as 10c. per kid, to the extent of three kids. 

These are the shadiest shades known in the economic system. 
They have strong convictions; believe in unlimited private owner- 



158 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

ships of land ; believe their children should be provided with fixed 
incomes of $100,000 per each child, as an emergency endowment to 
help get a foreign fakir to avoid celibacy. 

Every thing and every person is subject to change. What- 
ever changes of belief we have, we should acknowledge them freely ; 
we will then enjoy a greater degree of happiness. 

Prosperity. 

Some think, when they get rich, that they are prosperous. 
Holding notes, mortgages, bonds, and owning lands, houses and 
railroads, is prosperity from only one view, the view of selfishness. 
If the person, owning all these, is narrow-minded, grasping at 
every chance to get more, and having no thought as to whether 
he is oppressing others, he is not prosperous from a worthy point 
of view. If he does not feel generous enough to analyze his 
methods to see if he is outraging the rights of others, he is not 
prosperous from a moral point of view ; and if he never gives his 
legal rights, which make the ownership of all his property possible 
by State protection, due consideration, with a view to ascertain 
whether he is getting wealth for which he does not give anything 
in return, then he is criminally prosperous. 

To be prosperous in a good sense of the term it is necessary to 
be occupied with the pursuit of some good attainment, and to 
have plenty of worldly wealth to prosecute that pursuit with vigor. 
So many who have attained the worldly goods have no wealth of 
intellect to interest them and can find no pleasure or contentment 
outside the narrow path of economy and close application. 

'If one does not investigate his legal rights and ascertain whether 
they are founded on the principles of justice to all mankind, he is 
prosperous from a criminal point of view. 

If he goes on accumulating without caring anything about the 
moral status of his methods and legal rights, and gets generous 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 159 

enough to donate to schools and libraries, hospitals, and benevolent 
institutions, he becomes a modern tyrant, taking the earnings of a 
worthy working class and using his unearned wealth to pose as a 
benefactor. 

The most prosperous person from an ethical point of view is the 
one who can do the most good and be the most happy while he is 
doing it. Unfortunately these kinds of persons are generally im- 
posed upon by those who get a morbid gratification by scheming 
to appropriate the productions of the kind, generous, happy per- 
sons. And there are others so sensitive and have such deep, 
sympathetic natures that they are never very happy, because of 
the suffering and injustice throughout all nature. The thought 
of the killing of the chicken which so trustingly runs up to the feet 
of the farmer, gives this sensitive being a shock ; and the thought 
of every living, moving thing being unmercifully devoured by 
something brutal and ravenous ; and man at the top of the brutal 
creation preying upon those unable to defend themselves, not 
eating their flesh and picking their bones as in the case of the 
chicken dinner, but by means of unjust laws appropriating the 
products of their labor, gives the thoughtful, sensitive persons 
grief. 

Usurious interest on money, exorbitant rent on houses and 
lands, and high salaries to officials, all these are subjects which 
disturb the peace of mind of some good sensitive people, and about 
the only real contentment they get is striving to make better con- 
ditions. They have worthy natures, and we should try to make 
them happy by helping them, by giving them aid in their efforts. 
These kind people do not feel prosperous unless all mankind is 
prosperous. There are some of this kind of persons among the 
heirs of the immensely rich ; but living as they do in some sub- 
urban home and enploying agents to collect their annuities, their 
sensitive natures do not have a chance to develop into good efforts ; 
their minds too are entertained with soft, slushy sentimental 



160 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

literature, when they are not entertained with high fashionable 
society ; so they are victims of their surroundings and cannot be 
blamed. 

The only way to be really happy is to know how to contend 
with the things that make you miserable. Maybe the captains 
of industry feel miserable when they are not exploiting and oppress- 
ing the laborers, or maybe they see only good in doing what the 
laws sanction ; in either case they are not so much to be blamed 
as those who meekly submit. 

If the laboring class had not the means at hand to better their 
condition, we could have more sympathy for them. But they are 
so ignorant and superstitious, so devoted to their various re- 
ligious beliefs, so thoroughly deceived with divine providence, 
that they are incapable of knowing how to proceed. Our full 
sympathy goes out to those who do know how to proceed, and be- 
cause these cannot get the concerted action of the ignorant to get 
relief through legislation, we should extend help. 

The tyranny of taxation is just beginning to get a good hold on 
the farms of Kansas, and the office-holders, the bankers, the real 
estate dealers, the merchants, and all those who are trying to build 
fine cities, these are all in for it ; so you fellows who are digging 
in the soil can prepare to dig harder than ever. It is only neces- 
sary to attend the legislature and observe closely, to understand 
the drift of legislation. The public schools of the State are all 
right, and the legislation to get good roads is all right, but nearly 
everything else that is being done is in favor of the fellows who 
don't live on the farms. You farmers may have some hard lessons 
given you in the next few years : you may learn that the Agri- 
cultural College is mostly hog-tail serum and high-salaried officials 
who want more salaries. The agricultural colleges should be self- 
supporting after the plants are established. The prosperity you 
hear so much about is not going to touch taxpayers. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 161 

Consecration. 

It would be hard to get more foolishness and deception into a 
word than is contained in consecration. To be consecrated is to 
be an adept in fooling the people with piety. There is nothing 
about consecration that has any practical value for those who toil 
to feed, clothe, shelter, entertain and educate the really good 
people. Consecration was created by old-time schemers who de- 
sired to formulate a systemized business of humbugging the 
ignorant into a business of God-worship ; and they have been 
successful in applying the scheme. To the schemers it is a very 
practical word, and being connected with pious pomp, the cred- 
ulous believer thinks a bishop has attained a kind of exalted good- 
ness which qualifies him to live in ease and comfort by the con- 
tributions which hard-working, honest, though ignorant, good 
people make to the church. A diocese is an ecclesiastical division 
where the spoils are computed and divided among so many men 
who are in the useless God-business of saving souls. What 
humbuggery! What a complicated system of superstitious 
plunder! If all the money which is wasted on these bishops, prel- 
ates, pontiffs, priests and popes, were used in our public schools 
to teach the children how to be good according to ethics, what a 
vast improvement it would bring to our civilization. 

To get the most happiness out of life we must learn to avoid 
the evils and errors which we have inherited from less enlightened 
ages. Till we put aside these old systems of religion which were 
the direct causes of nearly all the wars, our present civilization 
is in danger. It would never be wise to legislate against them be- 
cause of the zeal and ignorance upon which they were founded ; 
but to discourage them by the persuasive means of good books 
is a privilege the value of which it is hard to estimate. 

The greatest benefactors of this age will be those who succeed 
in uniting the people in the practice of being good on an ethical 



162 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

system based on the laws of nature. Such a system is now well 
understood by our best school teachers. When this knowledge 
enters every home and eradicates the God-loving, God-fearing 
and God-menacing trickery practiced by preachers, then we may 
soon attain the greatest degree of happiness; then we may see 
more attention given to making pleasant homes ; then we may all 
see how unnecessary it is to build big churches in which to love 
and worship God ; then we may all see that the easiest and best 
way to be good is to love one another, and go to the parks, base- 
ball games and theaters on Sunday; then we may see that one 
way to be good is to enjoy ourselves at any pleasure that will not 
injure us or hinder the enjoyment of others ; until then we must 
do the best we can and be patient with those who have not a 
chance to be very good ; till then we must remember that some 
well-meaning people have believed in Providence and still believe 
in prayer, even though this same Providence would completely 
destroy a church with a cyclone ; till then we must set a good 
example by refraining from the use of ugly language, and other 
evidences which show that we are not so good but what we could 
be a little better. 

In the mean time, get busy at something which will benefit 
yourselves, and help you to improve yourselves in time to be care- 
ful of others. Be as good as you can, as often as you can, whenever 
you can, and yet be careful not to go to such an excess in being 
good as to injure yourselves; but whatever you do, remember 
you can be as good as any bishop who ever lived, and yet not be 
consecrated. To get consecrated one has to learn a whole lot 
of ecclesiastical trash of no use whatever to modern morality. 

D. D.'s of every description and kind have a better chance to 
be good than some fellows who get into the penitentiary; they 
have a system (and they inherited it, too) which enables them to 
live by the works of those who have more faith than good sense. 
This helps them to keep themselves from being so bad as to get 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 163 

entangled in the civil laws ; this helps them to pose as being very 
good, and when men are well dressed, smooth shaved, clean and 
fst, they can appear to be good even though they do not earn 
any of the good things they get. Remember, a good appearance 
is largely a matter of good clothes, good food, and a good chance 
to read, rest, and get intelligent ; and some ar§ so constituted 
that they never question the possibility of a vocation being of no 
use to humanity ; so some of these D. D.'s may act in good faith 
and really believe themselves to be very good, when in fact they 
are a useless burden on society. 

Since the sciences of chemistry, electricity, surgery, and the 
theory of evolution, have got a hold on the intelligence of most of 
men, theology wriggles and twists its doctrines to make it appear 
that morality is based on the God-business ; but when we see 
families who do not have anything to do with the God-business, 
bring up some of the best and most useful men that we know, then 
we see morality is purely a matter of ethics ; consequently such 
words as God, devil, sin, consecration, Holy Ghost, providence, 
prayer, etc., do not have any place in the vocabulary of mo- 
rality. Some of the best men who ever lived never prayed, or 
if they did they were ashamed of it afterwards. What stupendous 
egotism a man attaches to himself when he talks to the power 
that rules the universe (Nature and her laws), then pretends to 
get an answer. It was both pitiful and laughable to see Scoville 
& Co. performing the Salvation drama at the Auditorium in To- 
peka. Rockwell, the music manager, would walk the stage, paw 
the air, clap his hands, and give the word "Go!' (begin) just like 
is sometimes done at a foot-race. 

Then he would have the chorus of some new song repeated 
time after time ; then he would have the men whistle it. and cheer 
•them with "fine!" "fine!" "splendid!" After this, three or four 
of the ministers would coax God with little 2x4 prayers, so void 
of intelligent application to nature's laws that it seemed just like 



164 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 



little children talking to their toys. When we contemplate these 
performances seriously, we do not wonder that some men have 
not sense enough to provide comfortable homes ; we do not wonder 
why some do not know how to be good enough to be happy. 

When people can be fooled into participating in such per- 
formances, how easy it must be for them to indulge in the vices 
which contaminate the large cities ! What easy victims they must 
be for the crafty, treacherous manipulators of vice and cruelty! 
How unfortunate that they have not some better way of exer- 
cising the emotional part of their natures! No doubt most of 
these were so poor and have such a hard time in the battle for 
life, that they have never had time to develop their reasoning 
faculties. Likely, too, some were so rich and self-indulgent that 
their morbid natures kept them from being good and decent, and 
they felt the need of some kind of a change. Poor people ! They 
are more to be pitied than censured. 

We wonder if there is enough of this kind to turn civilization 
backward and undo all that the great men of scientific research 
have given us. This thought would be alarming if it were not 
for the fact that our legislatures are almost independent of church 
influence. 

This blighting influence of the church has an alarming hold 
on the schools, but the legislative powers may prevent any further 
union of church and state. 

There are many preachers who would like to see civil laws 
which would enforce people to attend church and drink some of 
the blood of Jesus and chew his flesh — cannibal worship! These 
D. D.'s would like to prepare a dipping-tank behind a curtain 
and dip every man, woman and child in Topeka, then sing 
" whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow." They would like 
to have a " fountain filled with blood" to cleanse sinners, and have 
Jesus or some of his emissaries to turn water intowine in violation 
of our prohibitory amendment. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 165 

"Atheist!!! Sinner!! desecrator! evolutionist! blasphemer! 
def amer ! God in his wrath will put you in hell, and fire and brim- 
stone will torture you throughout eternity." Wow! O these 
shades ; how they do make a truth-seeker side-step ! 

Old-age Pensions. 

The prosy reality of old age none can avoid; and when we 
think of the false, optimistic doctrine that a merciful God is making 
a record of all we do, we sometimes dwell upon God's record ; in 
which thousands were drowned in floods ; pestilences of all kinds 
sweep millions from the face of the earth ; famines depopulating 
some countries to the horrible extent of half the inhabitants, whose 
upturned eyes in trusting prayer beg for mercy ; cruel wars where 
both combatants pray to the same Christ and the same God, 
thanking him for his merciful protection ; one branch of the church 
at enmity with another branch, calling its members dupes as the 
Reverend Scoville did, February 27th, at the Auditorium in To- 
peka; and the industrial conditions in many countries where 
the rich starve the laboring people, both sides teaching the merci- 
fulness and wisdom of God. This is enough to disgust such 
scientists as Edison with the foolishness and weakness of his 
fellow human beings. 

The laws of nature which govern the universe are as cruel to 
man as they are good, and it is only as he learns to protect him- 
self and guide these laws into his submission by the works of such 
men as the scientist are that we are safe from complete annihi- 
lation. 

Old age needs comfort and protection from the cruel laws of 
nature and the inhuman civil laws of man. Much has already 
been done in throwing light on this subject. The frugal thought- 
ful man who has not wasted his time and earnings has provided 
himself with a sufncienc}', and the government now having pro- 



166 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

vided a Postal Banking system in which deposits are as safe as the 
government can make them, makes old age secure against priva- 
tion and want ; but this security depends on the frugality of the 
individual, who should strive to accumulate property enough to 
make a sufficient deposit with the government, when he gets too 
old to do active work, and thus avoid being a burden on the public 
as a pensioner. 

To pension those having sufficient means to support themselves 
would be wrong, which would make a lot of extravagance as well 
as be a great hardship on taxpayers; and to pension those like 
we do retired judges and generals, all of whom are paid so liberally 
that they should in most cases have provided for old age, is to 
encourage extravagance and destroy frugality as well as to place 
a burden on taxpayers, most of whom are forced to practice 
economy all their lives. Anyone who has plenty in his own rights, 
and desires a pension, is more degraded than a pauper who has 
become a public charge through misfortune ; and anyone who 
becomes a public charge by his own recklessness ought to be 
ashamed to apply for a pension. Sometimes unavoidable mis- 
fortunes overtake very worthy people in all vocations. Upon 
these there ought to be a consideration extended ; but even here 
there are many who would resort to fraud ; so the public pension 
question is fraught with great dangers. 

A man who would oppose giving an old soldier, who is in need, 
a pension, such a man is not a good citizen, for the soldiers risk 
their lives before shot and shell. 

If our industrial system were so arranged that every careful 
person would have a good opportunity to provide for old age, 
a pension system would be unnecessary; while a liberal pauper 
fund might have a good influence on society, but it should be so 
arranged that those who live reckless lives would feel disgraced 
by having to apply for it. Nothing would be more harmful to a 
government than a pension law for those (like the judges of the 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 167 

higher courts, who are paid such high salaries and put in so little 
time at their work) who have good opportunities to provide for 
old age. To pension the school teachers who become disabled 
by old age would be much more worthy, for these struggle under 
severe competition, from which cause their wages are meagre 
compared with the salaries of judges, who get their offices through 
political patronage. It does seem that we are nearing a time 
when those who work to feed, clothe and entertain the human 
family should get as much consideration in a helpless old age 
as those who fight for a salary. Yes, pensions for the industrious 
old citizens are in the line of a progressive civilization, even if a 
lone socialist was the first to introduce such a measure in Congress. 

Socialism. 

Socialism is a menace to future development. If it ever comes 
into power (and there is a very great possibility of it in the next 
ten years), there will not be the necessary rivalry to bring out the 
best developments of individuals. Ease and comfort are not 
conducive to the best of achievements. Under present conditions 
our most useful men have not come from families where wealth 
and luxury prevailed ; and on the other hand, too much poverty 
and strife in getting the comforts of life are not good for the moral 
development of a community ; so it seems there should be limita- 
tions to a man's right for owning and controlling certain kinds of 
property. 

While his right to hold credits for money deposited in National 
Banks should not be limited, provided the government reserved 
for itself the exclusive right to receive interest on money, and pro- 
vided also, that every deposit was guaranteed and subject to being 
drawn at any time. This would be the means for providing for 
old age, instead of monopolizing land and other kinds of property 
when too old to manage it. 



168 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

All chances by which large fortunes are accumulated for those 
who do not labor, — through interest on money loaned, land rented 
and other privileges, are the causes of such a great interest being 
taken in Socialism. But Socialism goes too far, and says there 
should be no private ownership in the industries. 

Private ownership in land used for homes and the families, is 
the best provision that is now made to keep a country productive. 
Economical management is much more apt to prevail if* the 
manager would be the loser in case an industry was not well 
managed; just as bad management is apt to prevail when the 
manager is not a loser in case good management is not given. 

The Socialists as a self-conscious class mean well, but to argue 
that private ownership of homes and industries operated with the 
families' labor, should give way to public ownership, will never be 
accepted by those who like to manage their own affairs. 

We already have the foundation structure in private owner- 
ship to build upon in making a better civilization. No doubt 
there need to be some restrictions and limitations made, but these 
can all be made by graded systems of taxation, to eliminate all 
those incomes which come from interest on money and rent on 
houses and lands. 

Socialism is right in maintaining that the State should provide 
for the employment of everybody who asks for it, and maintaining 
that the remuneration should be enough so that those who thus 
seek employment could provide well for their families. 

To declare that every man should have all that he earns and 
that no man should have what he does not earn, is a Socialist dec- 
laration; and to the extent that the government can regulate 
fixed incomes which allow some to get what they do not earn, 
such regulations will be demanded by all those who believe in be- 
ing progressive. 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 169 

Money. 

Out in the desert, away from population, where nature has full 
sway, a man might have all the money he could carry and it would 
be worth no more to him than so many pounds of sand, if he had 
no way of getting to the marts of his fellow-man. All economic 
thinkers agree that it is a creation of law, and is more powerful 
than prayer for producing or hindering evil, or vice versa, provided 
you have it where population is abundant. 

Making money, getting money and earning money are entirely 
different, yet so closely related that the ordinary thinker gets 
these three processes mixed. 

As a matter of fact, only organized governments, based on civil 
law, can make money. Individuals earn money and get money ; 
and in the industries and business, some earn it and don't get it, 
and a good many get it but do not earn it. How? " Please tell 
how?" Everybody is interested in this process, especially the 
preachers and pontiffs, for there must be limitations placed upon 
this process, or the privilege of living sumptuously without giving 
anything in return might get analyzed so completely that usurers 
and tricksters of high and low grade would have to do something 
beneficial to mankind or starve. Starve! O miserable thought! 

Loaning money at a legal rate of interest is the most respectable 
and safest way of getting it, provided you can get good real-estate 
security as a basis for loans ; and ever}^ government ought to have 
reserved this process of getting money — reserving interest-gather- 
ing for itself only, and guarantee deposits from individuals to be 
absolutely safe. " Horrible thought! outrageous conclusion! in- 
competent suggestion! parental tendency, destroying competition 
in the process of getting money without earning it!" $5000 used 
to be the price of the best negro slave, and he could earn 1300 
annually for his master, but he was apt to die, get kicked by a 
mule, struck by lightning, or something of the kind. Did anybody 



170 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

ever hear of a mortgage or a bond, or a promissory note getting 
kicked by a mule or destroyed by lightning? So anyone can see, 
even a preacher can see, that buying a $5000 mortgage is a good 
deal easier and safer way of getting $300 annually without earning 
it. Anybody who — "O such slush! You had better read a good 
work or two on political economy and learn something of the 
science of finance, and learn that capital has an accumulative 
power independent of labor." 

It is aggravating to have these shades interfere when a good 
point is in course of development. 

Under present conditions, banks are as necessary as stores or 
any other business, and under a condition suggested, before those 
last troublesome shades interfered, they, the present capable 
bankers, would be necessary to keep and conduct the banks with 
all the present conveniences, and should be well paid for such 
high-class mental labor; yet the government, which makes all 
the money, should be the only recipient of interest on money, and 
yet each depositor have all the privileges that his c e it deposits 
now give him. 

"What a ridiculous, unjust theory! You are the crankiest 
crank that ever got away from home without a guide! To think 
that you have the brazen boldness to destroy the system which the 
venerable Rothschilds have left us, this system which enables us 
gentlemen to live in the most luxurious style without having any 
care or anxiety, and still have our fortunes increasing all the time. 
You villain! You fiend! You imbecile! Go! Get off the earth!" 

Golly! Guess it'll be best not to disturb these shades any 
more. The officers of the law respond to the call of these shades 
quicker than they do to the Holy Ghost shades. 

A man who desires to own land enough to employ himself and 
children, has a praiseworthy ambition. To have a home with all 
modern equipments, where comfort and leisure are abundant, 
where music, literature and sociability give ample employment, 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 171 

creates a peace-loving contentment for parents and gives children 
a desire to be good, industrious, and respectable. 

But a lust after land in this country is a disgraceful, crime- 
producing cause, of which nice city people are uninformed. 

In western Kansas there is one of these land-crazy farmers, 
who has fourteen quarter-sections of land and who is just as 
anxious to get another quarter-section as he was the first one. He 
has made slaves of his wife and children. His intellectuality has 
narrowed down to getting money without giving an equivalent to 
his family or society. Every day is burdensome with scrimping, toil- 
ing, and worry ; and his tenants are blear-eyed weaklings who live 
the same kind of a life. These renters have to live as they do ; 
for the landlord has the law in his favor to collect exorbitant rents. 
This land-tenure system is one of the blighting influences which 
make country life so disagreeable and drives the young people to 
the overcrowded cities. The real-estate men in their fine auto- 
mobiles take strangers through this locality and tell of the wonder- 
ful success of this landlord, and issue glowing circulars telling of the 
wonderful crops and induce the strangers to invest at a price 
about double what the land is worth. Whenever these shrewd 
real-estate men sell a quarter-section for the aforesaid owner they 
divide the spoils and talk over the wonderful enterprise ; then 
immediately the old monopolizer hunts up some fellow who has 
been a victim in this poverty-producing scheme some years ago, 
and buys twice as much land as the slick real-estate men sold. 

Now if the governor and bank commissioner are going to get 
after the blue-sky schemes of getting money, they might find a 
job out there ; and if the railroads are going to be compelled to 
show figures for reckoning a physical valuation, why would it not 
be right to apply the same process to the land dealers? 

"It will never do to talk such foolishness publicly. The busi- 
ness interests forbid it. The selling prices of land would decrease, 
and we could not make such high assessments in getting out our 



172 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

county tax lists. We want to keep these assessments up, so all 
the salaries can be raised. We men who manage the official work 
of county and State need big automobiles. We can loan money 
to the farmers at 6 per cent, and take 2 per cent, out of the face of 
the loan and thus get 8 per cent., defeating the law which regulates 
the legal rate of interest. 

"You see we have the advantage of the railroads; if they 
should try to collect a commission on rates, as we do on loans, the 
attorney-general would get onto the job and there would be some- 
thing doing. When we make a loan to a farmer who is hitched so 
short that he can't kick, it only takes a few strokes of the pen to 
take $120 out of $1000 on five years' time. Of course the farmer 
gets only $880 and pays a 6 per cent, interest on $1000 ; thus we 
manage to keep the farmers poor so they will have to borrow 
money. We are Sages, and it is ungenteel for you to call us shades. 
We have a Kansas Banker, a publication especially for bankers. 
It does not circulate only with the bankers and money-loaners. 
It will see to it that no legislation is enacted that will interfere with 
the business interests. You are just a little wrong in the head. 
There is no use to be wasting sympathy for a lot of Rubes." 

It seems like the Shades are going to be Sunny Jims, but it will 
be nearer right to call them Shady Sages. They are wise, no 
doubt, and not bothered with compunction ; besides, it is possible 
that they believe in the Christian plan of salvation, which is, to tell 
it all to Jesus, then be prayerful and trust to Providence. Any- 
how, getting money without earning it is not confined to judges, 
most of whom do not hold court more than one-third of the time, 
and nearly all of whom are getting their salaries raised; in ad- 
dition to this they will get retired on pensions. Here are the sages 
and shades, and they look so much alike it is hard to tell tother 
from which! 

"We will admit that the constitution provides that a man may 
act according to the dictates of his conscience, but when he seems 



THE PROSY ROMANCE. 173 

to have no conscience and advocates a scheme that will destroy 
incomes which are not based on human effort, but on property 
rights, then it is time to suppress such schemes. The laborers 
have all the advantages that they can assimilate ; to allow them 
anything more than a living would injure them, for they would use 
it up in riotous living and unfit themselves for the good service 
which they now give ; besides, we are especially made by God, 
through divine providence, to rule over those less intellectual. 
The divine rights of kings, wherever they can sustain them, are 
akin to the divine rights of aristocrats which the sacred rights of 
property have established, and to limit the amount of property a 
man controls, by a graded system of taxation, or to make the 
government the only recipient of interest on money, would inter- 
fere with the Business Interests." 

There are so many Shades in the elucidations which I have de- 
liberated upon, in trying to harmonize my convictions with yours 
and Vina's, that I have concluded to travel two years and see just 
what other civilizations are in other countries. In this last 
message I have retracted many of my former utterances on rights 
of propertjr. I think I'll be converted to all your economic views, 
and if you can reconcile yourself to my ethical views of morality 
which are in opposition to Christianity, there is a chance for a 
wedding, the ceremony to be performed by a probate judge, pro- 
vided I do not become a Christian. 

The sequel to this much-mixed episode being due in 1913. A. 
D., there is time for prayer to do wonders if there is anything in 
prayer. 

It is awful to live in a worldly doubt and uncertainty, but it is 
better than not to have lived at all. According to Rev. Scoville, 
I am convicted of an unpardonable sin ; however, if I should say 1 
believed what I do not believe, I would be a liar and a hypocrite. 



174 THE PROSY ROMANCE. 

No man can help what he believes, but he can avoid being a 
hypocrite. 

I am now bidding you both Good-by! I shall be in Topeka in 
1913 if there is no " preventing (?) Providence/' and am trusting 
to Dodd Gaston to give bachelors' consolation. If you succeed 
in getting Vina Vintage married to some good preacher, I shall be 
willing to do like Dodd Gaston intends to do. 

Dash Blank. 
March 20th, 1911. 



DEC 23 1911 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
DEC 23 W" 



